The future of religion: Intersections of Rorty,Vattimo and Zabala

The following work builds and expands on a number of critical themes that were raised and discussed in a colloquy initiated by Santiago Zabala on the topic ‘the future of religion’ (which carries the title of the published version) with the American philosopher Richard Rorty and Italian political activist Gianni Vattimo. But, on top of the essay's principal aim, a re-appropriation of the critical voices of Nietzsche and Heidegger is all the more necessary to begin with: both are known to have pioneered an examination of the progress of humanity following the death of God, an expression that strikes a broader reference to religion. This essay continues from Rorty's assessment of ‘the weakening and/or death of ontology’, in the post-modern age. (Vattimo would translate this Rortyian position into a ‘philosophical slide into sociology’ or the ‘turn to social sciences,’ while Zabala would set out as far as denying the God of monotheism [and its corollary in organised faith and ecclesiastical authority] of its pre-eminent place among the highest ‘goals of knowledge’). But, notwithstanding an otherwise valid criticism of religion in the light of his deconstructive notion of Being, this essay also hopes to spell out, on the contrary even, that Rorty must have missed the point in conflating religion with ontology or, God with Being in view of which his concept of weak ontology that is derived from the death of God (hence the death of ontology) is quickly drawn. Indeed, there is still Being; though it may still resist definition, as Heidegger underscored rather sardonically in the opening pages of his celebrated work Being and Time, it is no longer the other name for God. As this essay also aims to promote, Being is an expression of the private transcendental or rather an exercise in nihilism that is at the core of religion.     

The role of moral identity in the aftermath of dishonesty

People lie on a regular basis. However, lying can pose a threat to the self-view of being an honest and moral person. How do people respond to their previous dishonest acts? A way to deal with psychological discomfort arisen for previous lying is reconfirming oneself to be an honest and moral person, for example, by showing subsequent moral behavior. We hypothesize that people engage in this reconfirmation depending on whether their moral identity is central to their self-concept. This was supported in three studies in which, compared to low moral identifiers, high moral identifiers engaged in more efforts to uphold a moral self-image and were more likely to show a compensatory reaction rather than a consistency reaction to their previous dishonesty. Implications for the topics of moral self-regulation and compensatory ethics and for the concept of moral identity are discussed.     

The Catholic Church, moral doctrine, and HIV prevention in Recife, Brazil: Negotiating the contradictions between religious belief and the realities of everyday life

Religious beliefs have had a key role in shaping local responses to HIV and AIDS. As the world's largest Catholic country, Brazil is no exception. Yet little research has been conducted to document how the religious doctrine is enacted in practice among its lay leaders and followers. In this article, we present ethnographic research from Recife, Brazil, conducted to understand the way in which religious doctrines are interpreted on a local level. Contextualized within the sociology of contemporary Brazilian Catholicism, we draw on interviews with clergy members, lay leaders and parishioners in order to discuss how the Catholic Church's vision of sexuality translates into the everyday lives of its followers by. We explore the disjuncture between the Catholic ideals of fidelity and delaying sex until marriage with the everyday reality of the Church's followers, highlighting the role that gender plays in defining sexual roles and expectations. We conclude posing questions for future research and HIV prevention strategies considering the formal institutional response of the Brazilian Catholic Church to AIDS on one hand, and the social and cultural contexts in which Catholics live their daily lives on the other.     

Do I want to know? How the motivation to acquire relationship-threatening information in groups contributes to paranoid thought,suspicion behavior,and social rejection

We investigated the psychological and social consequences associated with individuals’ motivation to search for information about whether they have been indirectly harmed by members of their group. Consistent with a motivated social cognition perspective, group members who were either chronically (Study 1a) or temporally (Study 1b) high in the motivation to acquire relationship-threatening information (MARTI) made more sinister attributions in ambiguous situations and entertained more paranoid cognitions about their coworkers. Moreover, paranoid cognitions about coworkers mediated the relationship between MARTI and suspicion behaviors toward coworkers (Study 2). Consistent with a social interactionist perspective, others chose to exclude prospective group members who were high in MARTI from joining the group and planned to reject them if they became group members (Study 3). Others’ social rejection of the focal group member was predicted by their anger toward group members who were high in MARTI (Study 4).     

The Attraction of Africanized Honey Bees (Apis mellifera L.) to Soft Drinks and Perfumes

The attraction of Africanized bees to soft drinks and perfumes was investigated. In the first experiment, the ability of bees to discriminate between two perfumes (Realm for Men and Realm for Women) was assessed. The results indicated that the scents could be used as conditioned stimuli. In the second experiment, bees were divided into individual groups and confined to small metal tubes. Groups were fed either Diet Pepsi, spring water (control), Diet Guaraná, Diet Coca-Cola, Coca-Cola, Sprite, Pepsi, Guaraná, Sukita Orange, Fanta Orange, Fanta Grape, or sucrose (control). The dependent variable was the amount of time the bee's proboscis was in contact with a strip of filter paper saturated with the substance. The results indicated little or no contact with the diet soft drinks and spring water, 45–65 s of contact with Coca-Cola, Sprite, Pepsi, Guaraná, and Sukita Orange, and 75–140 s of contact with Fanta Orange, Fanta Grape, and sucrose (sucrose elicited the most contact of the substances tested). In a third experiment, the ability of bees to associate an odor with a soft drink was assessed in a discrimination task. With Citral and Geraniol as conditioned stimuli, conditioning was best to sucrose, Guaraná, and Fanta Orange. Little conditioning was observed with Pepsi, and no conditioning was observed with Diet Pepsi.     

How employees respond to personal offense: the effects of blame attribution, victim status, and offender status on revenge and reconciliation in the workplace

This study investigated the relationships between blame, victim and offender status, and the pursuit of revenge or reconciliation after a personal offense. Results from a sample of 141 government agency employees showed that blame is positively related to revenge and negatively related to reconciliation. In addition, victim-offender relative status moderated the relation between blame and revenge such that victims who blamed sought revenge more often when the offender's status was lower than their own. The victims' own absolute hierarchical status also moderated this relation such that lower, not higher, status employees who blamed sought revenge more often.     

Moral identity and the expanding circle of moral regard toward out-groups

This article examines moral identity and reactions to out-groups during intergroup conflict Four studies suggest that a highly self-important moral identity is associated with an expansive circle of moral regard toward out-group members (Study 1) and more favorable attitudes toward relief efforts to aid out-group members (Study 2). Study 3 examines moral identity and national identity influences on the provision of financial assistance to out-groups. Study 4 investigates the relationship between moral identity and (a) the willingness to harm innocent out-group members not involved in the conflict and (b) moral judgments of revenge and forgiveness toward out-group members directly responsible for transgressions against the in-group. Results are discussed in terms of self-regulatory mechanisms that mitigate in-group favoritism and out-group hostility.     

A comparison of agricultural biotechnology research communities in the UK and brazil

Thirty-four biotechnology researchers of the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC), United Kingdom, and twenty-eight of the Brazilian Agriculture Research Enterprise (Embrapa), Brazil, were asked which factors are important for research; and the external influences in defining their research project objectives. The data show that: 1) eight of the eighteen selected factors that influenced their research have statistically significant differences when the perceptions of both research groups were compared; and, 2) both research groups do not perceive significant influences from external groups and organizations when defining research project objectives.     

Social Status and Aggressiveness as Moderators of the Relationship Between Interactional Justice and Workplace Deviance

Workplace deviance is a prevalent and costly problem for organizations. This study examines the relationship between interactional justice, a specific type of organizational justice perception that reflects how a person is treated by an authority, and 2 categories of deviant behavior. Based on a person-situation model, we expected the relation between interactional justice and deviance to be stronger when the employee is high rather than low in aggressiveness. Drawing from prior research suggesting that people with low status react defensively to self-invalidating events, we hypothesized that the social status variables of hierarchical position, gender, and race would also moderate the relation between interactional justice and deviance. Finally, we propose a 3-way interaction involving aggressiveness, status, and interactional justice. Data were collected from 192 employees of a public sector organization. The results provide support for several of the hypothesized interactions involving aggressiveness, social status variables, and interactional justice.     

Attention and the processing of emotional words: Dissociating effects of arousal

There is debate as to whether emotionally charged words receive preferential attentional processing in normal individuals. Using a digit-parity task, Harris and Pashler (2004) found that threat-related words captured attention on only the first trial, suggesting no attention capture for emotional words aside from an initial surprise reaction. We examined whether sexually explicit words would be more effective at capturing attention in a similar task. Our results with threat words replicated those of Harris and Pashler in that threat words did not lead to an increase in reaction time (RT) on the parity task, relative to emotionally neutral words. However, sexual words led to a marked increase in RTs for over 100 trials. Words’ arousal ratings, but not their valence ratings, predicted the amount of interference. Parity RTs for individual words were also related to memory for the word on a surprise memory test. Sexually explicit words may have more potential to capture attention than do threat-related words. The words presented here as distractors in the digit-parity task, along with their corresponding valence ratings, arousal ratings, and digit-parity RTs, can be downloaded from www.psychonomic.org/archive.