Handling Doubt in Teaching Religion: A Turkish Case Study

Abstract. This study ventures to sketch the dimensions of stress in religious thinking among young Muslims studying theology in Turkish universities and the ways in which these tensions are handled in educational institutions. As a result of a review of related literature, together with the use of a questionnaire with 382 respondents and interviews with 15 participants, the extent of experienced intense religious stress, the source, the content, the ways of resolution, the duration, and the period of religious stress were identified. Finally, the cognitive, educational, theological, and socio‐cultural challenges to which young Muslims were exposed were delineated and possible ways to overcome these problems were outlined, with some suggestions for educational settings. (The questionnaire mentioned in this essay can be found on the Wabash Center Web site < http://www.wabashcenter.wabash.edu/journal/ok.html >.)     

善因营销对消费者态度的影响及其理论解释

善因营销是一种传播企业社会责任, 提升品牌形象的策略。当企业与善因事件结合时, 消费者可以获得参与慈善的机会。归因理论、SOR理论、自我信号理论、平衡理论可用于解释善因营销对消费者态度的影响。未来研究应进一步探讨在善因营销中是否存在其他影响消费者态度的因素, 从消费者角度深入研究善因营销的影响效果, 尝试从新的理论视角去分析善因营销影响消费者态度的内在机制。     

Roles of fundamentalism and authoritarianism in relations between religiosity and civil liberties among Muslims

Two cross-sectional studies were conducted with undergraduate and graduate students (mean age = 22 years) in two university campuses in different regions of Turkey to investigate confrontations between conservative religious people and secular-liberal people and the roles of fundamentalism and authoritarianism for these groups. Study 1 investigated the connections between traditional religiosity and liberties and the impact of religious fundamentalism with a sample of 482 participants. Using hierarchical multiple linear regression and bootstrapping analysis, religiosity was seen as negatively connected to three components of liberties. It was shown that religious fundamentalism had an indirect effect on this connection. In Study 2, with a sample of 260 participants, the negative connection between traditional religiosity with liberties was confirmed. Further, it was found that particularly the conservatism dimension of right-wing authoritarianism played an explanatory role in this connection. In addition, as an extension of the two studies, it was observed that secular-liberal participants supported civil liberties in general, but they expressed opposition to freedom of religion in particular, indicating that the antagonism between religious and secular people may also stem from secular-liberal people. It was found that dimension of aggression of left-wing authoritarianism played an explanatory role in connection to this aspect.     

Letter-detection patterns in German: A window to the early extraction of sentential structure during reading

Letters are more difficult to detect in function words than in content words, presumably because function words serve to cue sentential structure but recede to the background as meaning unfolds. This function disadvantage was found for the definite article in German for all three genders and all four cases, but it was more pronounced when the article appeared in a nominative noun phrase than in an object noun phrase. It was also more pronounced for the typical subject-predicate-object sentential format than for the object-predicate-subject sentential format and also when the definite article unequivocally specified the case of a phrase than when it was ambiguous. The results suggest that the structural frames established on line in reading are finely tuned to both phrase-level and sentence-level organization.     

Separate roles for executive and phonological components of working memory in mental arithmetic

A dual-task methodology was used to investigate the roles played by executive and phonological aspects of working memory in mental arithmetic. Experiment 1 showed that suppression of articulation impaired the ability to add a pair of briefly presented three-digit numbers. Suppression had no effect when the need to store temporarily was minimized by making the numbers visible throughout calculation. Experiment 2 showed that disrupting executive processes by requiring concurrent performance of a Trails task impaired the ability to add numbers that remained permanently visible. Performance on the Trails task deteriorated as the number of carry operations in the addition increased. Experiment 3 showed that this decline in Trails performance was not simply due to the extra time taken by carrying. These and other features of the results suggest that the carrying component of mental arithmetic places substantial demands on executive processes, whereas the need to retain problem information is met by the phonological loop. The results are consistent with an interpretation of executive processes according to which there is a limit on the capacity to inhibit strongly primed routine operations.