A Comparative Study of Mystical Experience Among Christian,Muslim, and Hindu Students in Tamil Nadu,India

Hood developed a Mysticism Scale based on the theoretical work of Stace. The scale was tested by Hood and others in a comparative perspective. Using an abridged version of Hood's Mysticism Scale, we join the debate with a study of a much larger number of Christian, Muslim, and Hindu respondents (1,920 college students) living in Tamil Nadu, India. Our empirical analysis yields a moderately reliable model of mystical experience that permits comparison between the three religious traditions. We argue for the usefulness of a comparative model of vertical mysticism that combines with the complementary common characteristics of noetic quality and ineffability. Vertical mysticism has a revelatory, ineffable character and is comparable in the experience of adherents of the Christian, Islamic, and Hindu traditions.     

Influence of the interests of children with autism on everyday learning opportunities

Findings from a pilot study investigating the influence of the interests of young children with autism on parents' provision of everyday informal child learning opportunities are described. 17 children (13 boys, 4 girls) were divided into two groups that received everyday learning opportunities of Low interest and High interest, based on parents' bi-weekly ratings of the interestingness of the opportunities to the children, using an investigator-developed measure. A brief intervention of 12 to 14 weeks showed that the children in the High interest-based group were provided more learning opportunities than were the Low interest-based group, and that the parents indicated that their children benefited more from the learning opportunities. Implications for future research are described.     

Paranormal beliefs and religiosity: Chinese version of the Revised Paranormal Belief Scale

This paper reports an initial study investigating the relations of paranormal beliefs with religiosity in a Chinese sample, as well as the development of a Chinese version of the Revised Paranormal Belief Scale and a test of its psychometric properties with 310 college students (5.5% Christians, 21.3% Buddhists, 61% believers in traditional Chinese religions, and 12% atheists). The reliability and validity of the Chinese version were satisfactory. In general, traditional Chinese religious believers had higher scores on paranormal belief than did Christians and atheists, and the mean total score of the Chinese participants was higher than previously reported in a Western sample. It was concluded that the greater involvement of practitioners of traditional Chinese religions in activities emphasizing paranormal experiences might contribute to their greater paranormal belief, especially as compared to the minority Christian group. The results are consistent with the idea that Christianity may offer the least support for paranormal belief.     

Relationships between Integrity–Related Variables,Work Performance,and Trustworthiness in English and Spanish

Employees (N = 92) from the USA and Mexico completed questionnaires that measured rule–breaking, drug use, and attitudes toward theft. Integrity–related variable clusters had significant intercorrelations. Rule–breaking correlated with supervisor evaluations of work performance in Spanish and with trustworthiness in English.     

Commuting Probability Revisions: The Uniformity Rule

A simple rule of probability revision ensures that the final result ofa sequence of probability revisions is undisturbed by an alterationin the temporal order of the learning prompting those revisions.This Uniformity Rule dictates that identical learning be reflectedin identical ratios of certain new-to-old odds, and is grounded in the oldBayesian idea that such ratios represent what is learned from new experiencealone, with prior probabilities factored out. The main theorem of this paperincludes as special cases (i) Field's theorem on commuting probability-kinematical revisions and (ii) the equivalence of two strategiesfor generalizing Jeffrey's solution to the old evidence problem tothe case of uncertain old evidence and probabilistic new explanation.     

Effects of Type of Coping Response,Setting, and Social Context on Reactions to Sexual Harassment

Male and female undergraduates from a multicultural university (MU) and an historically Black University (HBU) read a scenario in which a student was sexually harassed either by a professor or a workplace supervisor. The student victim's coping response was also varied. Participants rated the victim's behavior as most effective and appropriate when she confronted the harasser directly or reported the harasser's behavior. HBU students judged the harasser as not guilty significantly more often than MU students, but believed that the harasser was less trustworthy than multicultural students did. Women responded significantly more negatively to the blatant sexual harassment scenario than men did. Implications for prevention and interventions are discussed.     

Increased realism in eyewitness confidence judgements: the effect of dyadic collaboration

This study investigated to what extent, and under what circumstances, pair collaboration influences the realism in eyewitness confidence in event memory. The participants first saw a short film clip and then confidence rated their answers to questions on its content. A condition (the Individual–Pair condition) where individual effort preceded pair collaboration showed better calibration compared with a condition (the Simple Pair condition) where no individual effort took place. Furthermore, within the Individual–Pair condition, better calibration, and lower overconfidence, were found in the pair phase compared with the individual phase. The eyewitnesses in the Individual–Pair condition made more realistic judgements of the total number of questions answered correctly. In a control experiment no effect on realism in confidence was found when individuals performed the same task twice. The improved realism in the Individual–Pair condition may partly be explained in terms of the increased accuracy and lowered confidence found for such items where the pair members' had given different answers in the individual phase, and by a risky shift effect for such items where they had given the same answer. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.