Morality and political orientations: An analysis of their relationship

Groups are social constructions with differences. People spontaneously attempt to explain differences between groups. Stereotypes often play this explanatory role. Specifically, group members tend to attribute different essences to social categories. Given widespread ethnocentrism, it is not surprising that individuals reserve “the human essence” for their ingroup, while other groups are attributed a lesser humanity. This phenomenon is called infra‐humanisation and happens outside people's awareness. Secondary emotions (e.g., love, hope, contempt, resentment) are considered uniquely human emotions in contrast to primary emotions (e.g., joy, surprise, fear, anger) that are shared with animals. The research programme summarised in this chapter demonstrates through various paradigms that members of groups not only attribute more secondary emotions to their ingroup than to outgroups, but are also reluctant to associate these emotions with outgroups. Moreover, people behave less cooperatively with an outgroup member who expresses himself with secondary emotions than with an ingroup member who uses the same terms. Interestingly, infra‐humanisation occurs for both high‐ and low‐status groups, even in the absence of conflict between groups.     

Knowledge of place and knowledge of God: contemporary philosophies of place and some questions in philosophical theology

The paper examines three themes from the recent philosophical literature on place: the status of places as “concrete universals”; the narratively mediated agency of places; and the various ways in which human identity proves to be relative to place. I argue that these themes throw into new relief a set of correlative issues in philosophical theology concerning, respectively, God’s supra-individuality, God’s status as a final cause, and the divine grounding of human identity. On this basis, the paper proposes that knowledge of place is analogous to, and partly constitutive of, knowledge of God.     

The prediction of political evaluation and voting preference: A multidimensional analysis

Two separate studies, using college students in a political behavior class, tested the relationship between evaluation and voting preferences on the one hand and the dimensions emerging from a multidimensional scaling of similarity judgments for a set of nationally known political figures. Both studies found that political evaluation and voting preferences were highly predictable from three major dimensions underlying political perception. In Study I (n = 64), the subjects' self-ratings of liberal-conservatism yielded individual differences in the predictability of activity and potency from the political dimensions as well as differences in the relationships among evaluation, activity, and potency. In Study II (n = 51), the subjects' own authoritarianism indicated differences in the manner in which political figures were perceived in the multidimensional space.     

Relations and effects of transformational leadership: a comparative analysis with traditional leadership styles

This study has two main goals: (a) to compare the relationship between transformational leadership and other important leadership styles (i.e., democratic versus autocratic or relations- and task-oriented leadership) and (b) to compare the effects of transformational leadership and the other styles on some important organizational outcomes such as employees' satisfaction and performance. For this purpose, a sample of 147 participants, working in 35 various work-teams, was used. Results show high correlations between transformational leadership, relations-oriented, democratic, and task-oriented leadership. On the other hand, according to the literature, transformational leadership, especially high levels, significantly increases the percentage of variance accounted for by other leadership styles in relevant organizational outcome variables (subordinates' performance, satisfaction and extra effort).     

经国理身——论道教的终极理想及其现代意义

今天 ,当我们跨入新世纪而开始进行新的征程之际 ,如何汲取传统文化的精华 ,顺应时代的要求 ,建构符合现代人精神需要和社会发展需要的新文化成为我们不可回避的重要问题。本文认为 ,道教终极理想中的合理内核值得我们借鉴和参考。一从表面上看 ,道教是一种以得道成仙为根本信仰的宗教 ,它的理想目标是在世俗社会之外另求一个神仙世界。因此 ,有人认为 ,道教以得道成仙为最高的理想目标 ,追求个体生命的长存 ,并不关注国家和社会的治理。其实 ,这种看法是片面的。事实上 ,道教早在初创之时 ,就既关注人的长生成仙 ,又关注人赖以生存的社会的…     

A contemporary behavior analysis of anxiety and avoidance

Despite the central status of avoidance in explaining the etiology and maintenance of anxiety disorders, surprisingly little behavioral research has been conducted on human avoidance. In the present paper, first we provide a brief review of the empirical literature on avoidance. Next, we describe the implications of research on derived relational responding and the transformation of functions for a contemporary behavioral account of avoidance, before providing several illustrative research examples of laboratory-based analogues of key clinical treatment processes. Finally, we suggest some challenges and opportunities that lie ahead for behavioral research on anxiety and avoidance.     

对抗价值虚无主义——别尔嘉耶夫宗教本体论的当代意义

价值虚无主义表现为宗教的衰微、信仰的丧失,否定一切绝对价值的功利主义、以及相伴而生的道德主义、反文化倾向的广泛潮流.别尔嘉耶夫作为俄罗斯精神的守护者,坚持一种完整的、包容一切的、具体的总体性,以及对终极价值与基础的意向追求,诉诸于最高的、神秘的绝对存在--精神的实在性,通过神秘的宗教体验、非理性的直觉主义,将宗教本体主义贯彻到底.同时还延续了黑格尔宗教本体主义的内在超越路向,在宗教本体主义的层面上使被遮蔽的精神实在性,即人的最高价值和绝对自由显现出来.     

The construction of authority and authenticity in Islamic discourse(s): contrasting and historicizing contemporary narratives from English Sunni narratives

Throughout Islamic history scholars have put forward cases about the ‘right’ way to understand the faith. Focal to these processes is positioning a scholarly narrative as authoritative and authentic. This article contrasts two scholarly narratives of contemporary Sunni Islam as a means to explore how authority and authenticity are constructed. In addition to a critical discourse analysis, the respective positions are contextualized within their respectively claimed classical scholarship. The article identifies the means through which authority and authenticity are justified and it highlights the divisive nature of the discourses, often driven by carefully selected analogies, exaggerations, and the citing of extreme positions as exemplary of the errors of others. The findings have implications for understanding the intolerant, and sometime violent, interactions between Sunni Muslims.     

United States and Canadian approaches to justice in health care: A comparative analysis of health care systems and values

The purpose of this study is to compare and contrast the basic ethical values underpinning national health care policies in the United States and Canada. We use the framework of ethical theory to name and elaborate ethical values and to facilitate moral reflection about health care reform. Section one describes historical and contemporary social contract theories and clarifies the ethical values associated with them. Sections two and three show that health care debates and health care systems in both countries reflect the values of this tradition; however, each nation interprets the tradition differently. In the U.S., standards of justice for health care are conceived as a voluntary agreement reached by self-interested parties. Canadians, by contrast, interpret the same justice tradition as placing greater emphasis on concern for others and for the community. The final section draws out the implications of these differences for future U.S. and Canadian health care reforms.     

Psychological significance in personal and supplied construct systems: A defining experiment

An implication was examined of three assumptions of Personal Construct Theory. Personal and supplied construct systems were compared for their capacity to account for 34 subjects' behaviour in an independent sorting task. It was found that either construct system tended to account for a significant amount of the variance in sorting behaviour, but that more was accounted for by personal Construct systems. Observations were made on the way in which this phenomenon varied between subjects, sub-tasks, and parts of construct systems. The assumptions examined were held to be relevant to Social perception and cognitive theories.