A Phenomenological Inquiry of Identity Development,Same‐Sex Attraction,and Religious Upbringing

Growing up in religious/spiritual communities often creates identity issues for lesbian and gay individuals. In this phenomenological study, the authors investigated the experiences of 25 lesbian and gay individuals who self‐identified as having been raised within organized religious communities. Participants described that these communities were affirming, tolerant, or nonaffirming. Accordingly, emergent themes indicated that the current spiritual lives of participants varied greatly depending on their experiences of identity integration and affirmation. Implications for counselors and researchers are discussed.     

Evangelical group membership,depression, and well-being among older Mexican Americans: a comparison with older non-Hispanic Whites

This study assesses denominational differences in well-being among older Mexican Americans and examines differences between this group and older non-Hispanic Whites. Data came from two representative surveys of the US older adult population, focusing on each of these ethnic groups (N?=?996 and N?=?612, respectively). Evangelical Mexican Americans reported fewer symptoms of depression and greater life satisfaction than their Catholic counterparts, but there were no such differences among non-Hispanic Whites. Potential explanatory mechanisms examined included differences in frequency of attendance at religious services, use of positive and negative religious coping, and social support or conflict in the congregation. Among these, only the relationship of attendance and denomination varied by ethnicity, but this factor did not appear to explain differences in well-being. We propose that aspects of conflict between Catholic and Mexican-American identities contribute to making Evangelical affiliation more strongly related to well-being in this group.     

Intellectual Perfectionism about Schooling

In education, character education is a burgeoning field; however, it is also the target of considerable criticism. Amongst criticisms of character education, the political criticism that character education is a form of indoctrination stands out. In particular, the charge is made against character education that it breaches the principle of liberal neutrality about the good. In this article I discuss liberal approaches to character education. I outline the two most prominent liberal approaches to character education in school, liberal neutralism and liberal perfectionism, as we find it in the work of Clayton (neutralism) and Levinson (liberal perfectionism). I hold that the two standard liberal approaches do not distinguish carefully enough between two possible forms of character education – moral character education and intellectual character education. Drawing on recent work in virtue epistemology, I hold that the liberal position tacitly demands intellectual character education. Regarding moral character education, however, I hold that the picture appears different. In the final analysis, I advocate a new form of perfectionism regarding character education that I call ‘intellectual perfectionism’. According to intellectual perfectionism, schools should be perfectionist regarding children's intellects, but neutralist regarding their morals.     

Long ago it was meant to be: the interplay between time, construal, and fate beliefs

Fate means that an event was meant to be, that is, predetermined by prior unseen forces. Most people believe in fate, which seems at odds with similarly pervasive beliefs that alternative past actions would have brought about different circumstances (i.e., counterfactual beliefs). Two experiments revealed that construal level accounts for the relative plausibility of fate versus counterfactual explanations. Construal was manipulated in Experiment 1, such that goal pursuits framed in abstract ("why?") as opposed to concrete ("how?") terms heightened fate but not counterfactual attributions. Extending this finding, Experiment 2 showed that fate judgments were higher for temporally distant than recent past events, an effect mediated by construal perceptions. Neither counterfactual nor luck judgments varied with temporal distance. These findings help to explain how individuals explain complicated yet meaningful life events while extending the reach of Trope and Liberman's (2003) construal-level theory.