Theology after the Massacre in Norway

In 2011 Norway experienced its worst violent attack in peacetime and one of the most horrible mass murders ever: one young, white Norwegian killed 77 people, injured 40, and destroyed the Government Building in Oslo. He explained that the terror as a necessary attack on the Social Democracy and the multi‐ethnic and pluralistic society. Was he insane or competent? Was he guilty? In this article I argue that theology can contribute to the debate about guilt, punishment, and evil acts. A contextual theology today should draw from the treasures in the Christian tradition and take part in contemporary discourses about existential and ethical issues.     

Differences in cognitive control in children and adolescents with combined and inattentive subtypes of ADHD

The aim of the present study was to investigate the ability of children with attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder-combined subtype (ADHD-C) and predominantly inattentive subtype (ADHD-PI) to direct their attention and to exert cognitive control in a forced attention dichotic listening (DL) task. Twenty-nine, medication-naive participants with ADHD-C, 42 with ADHD-PI, and 40 matched healthy controls (HC) between 9 and 16 years were assessed. In the DL task, two different auditory stimuli (syllables) are presented simultaneously, one in each ear. The participants are asked to report the syllable they hear on each trial with no instruction on focus of attention or to explicitly focus attention and to report either the right- or left-ear syllable. The DL procedure is presumed to reflect different cognitive processes: perception (nonforced condition/NF), attention (forced-right condition/FR), and cognitive control (forced-left condition/FL). As expected, all three groups had normal perception and attention. The children and adolescents with ADHD-PI showed a significant right-ear advantage also during the FL condition, while the children and adolescents in the ADHD-C group showed a no-ear advantage and the HC showed a significant left-ear advantage in the FL condition. This suggests that the ADHD subtypes differ in degree of cognitive control impairment. Our results may have implications for further conceptualization, diagnostics, and treatment of ADHD subtypes.     

The neural basis of updating: Distinguishing substitution processes from other concurrent processes

Sörqvist, P. & Sætrevik, B. (2010). The neural basis of updating: Distinguishing substitution processes from other concurrent processes. Scandinavian Journal of Psychology, 51, 357–362. Most previous studies of updating processes have not been able to contrast processes of substituting items in memory with other concurrent processes. In the present investigation, we used a new task called “number updating” and an fMRI protocol to contrast the activation of trials that require item substitution (adding a new item to the working memory representation and suppressing an old item) with trials that involve no substitution (discarding the new item). Trials that require item substitution activated the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, the posterior medial frontal cortex and the parietal lobes, areas typically seen activated for working memory tasks in general. Trials that do not require substitution activated the anterior medial frontal cortex. Studies examining executive functions have associated this area with cognitive conflict, and may represent suppression of the substitution processes.     

Psychometric properties of the Type D scale (DS14) in Norwegian cardiac patients

Bergvik, S., Sørlie, T., Wynn, R. & Sexton, H. (2010). Psychometric properties of the Type D scale (DS14) in Norwegian cardiac patients. Scandinavian Journal of Psychology. The combination of negative affectivity (NA) and social inhibition (SI) – the Type D Personality – is associated with poor outcomes in coronary artery disease (CAD) patients. A Norwegian translation of the standard instrument measuring Type D (DS14) was tested on 432 CAD patients receiving coronary revascularization treatment. Factor analysis produced two factors with high inter‐item reliability, indicating that the Norwegian DS14 has acceptable psychometric properties. Eighteen percent were classified as Type D, lower than has been reported elsewhere. Type D was associated with anxiety, depression, and passive coping. NA correlated positively with depression, anxiety, and passive coping. SI correlated positively with depression and anxiety, and negatively with active coping. The prevalence of Type D was higher among women, and negatively correlated with time since treatment. The variation in Type D prevalence among studies needs further elucidation as does the predictive power of continuous scoring of the Type D trait.     

Extraordinary consumer experiences: Why immersion and transformation cause trouble

This paper presents and discusses how consumers are transformed in and out of immersion during extraordinary, long‐lasting wilderness canoeing experiences. Based on a hermeneutic multi‐phase empirical approach, we show how extraordinary experiences can be dynamic, multifaceted, and emergent. The positive connotations of prior research are questioned as we find that consumers face various paradoxes and ambiguities throughout the various consumption phases. While a major part of research today focuses on the co‐creation efforts of consumers when they combine various on‐site resource of experiencescapes, our findings point to the importance of understanding consumer resources. The distinction held between the ordinary and the extraordinary does not hold within the present context, and we discuss how role conflicts may influence transformation and immersion during consumption of experiences.     

Counting niqabs and burqas in Denmark: Methodological Aspects of Quantifying Rare and Elusive Religious Sub-cultures

Muslim women wearing face-covering clothing are the subject of politically heated debates in a number of European countries, but reliable data on the number of these women (niqabis) are generally lacking. At the request of the Danish government, the authors conducted a survey of niqabis in Denmark; this work is the first attempt to quantify niqabis in a European country by sampling new data from several different kinds of sources. Sociologically, niqabis represent a rare and elusive group, which presents particular methodological challenges. The methods discussed and used, such as stratified sampling, use of key informants, and location sampling, are relevant in the studies of many contemporary religious sub-cultures. Extensive triangulation of the different data provided an estimated number of niqabis of 150, with an uncertainty range of 100–200. This corresponds to 0.1–0.2% of Muslim women in Denmark. These figures tally with current rough estimates in other European countries.     

Contemporary Discussions on Religious Minorities in Muslim Countries

An Islamic debate on human rights has been developing actively over recent decades. Within that debate there has been a more specific one on religious pluralism and the rights of religious minorities in Muslim society and the Islamic state. This article briefly reviews initial responses to the United Nations Charter and then sets a historical context, before looking in more detail at selected writers such as Muh?ammad Sal L ¥ m al-?Awwa, Rashid Al-Ghan nouchi and Syed Z. Abedin, each coming at the subject from different perspectives.     

Al-D˛am L ¥ r,Human Conscience and Christian-Muslim Relations

Can human conscience be a uniting bond between Christians and Muslims, across moral and religious differences? This article discusses the notion of d?am L ¥ r as employed by the Egyptian Muslim authors ?Abba ¥ s Mah?mu ¥ d al-?Aqqa ¥ d, Kha ¥ lid Muh?ammad Kha ¥ lid and M. Ka ¥ mil H?usayn. In the 1950s and 1960s, these authors used the notion of d?am L ¥ r to express the inward dimension of Islamic ethics. As Islamic humanists, they also used it to express what Muhammad and Jesus, Muslims and Christians, may 'know together' in the field of ethics. The modern Egyptian material is related to some observations on the semantic history of d?am L ¥ r, and a discussion of the conceptual history of conscience in Christian tradition and European philosophy. The article proposes that a constitutive element in the notion of conscience is the tension between 'knowing by oneself' and 'knowing with others'. In a broader perspective, the article discusses conscience as a globalized concept, and its importance for a Christian-Muslim dialogue which respects the difference of the Other.