Does Religion Suppress,Socialize, Soothe,or Support? Exploring Religiosity's Influence on Crime

A negative association between religiosity and crime is commonly documented in the United States and other Western contexts. In this study, we examine associations between religiosity and criminal probability among randomly selected survey respondents in a non‐Western Christian context (Lviv, Ukraine) and a non‐Western Islamic context (Dhaka, Bangladesh). In addition, we explore whether religiosity is associated in these contexts with various theoretical mechanisms identified in prior research, including self‐control, social control, moral beliefs, negative emotions, and social support. Results confirm that religiosity is negatively correlated with projected criminal probability in non‐Western contexts as well as among both Christian and Muslim respondents. Furthermore, net of social and demographic characteristics, religiosity appears to indirectly influence crime through moral beliefs and, to a lesser extent, through self‐control and informal social control.     

A motion aftereffect from visual imagery of motion

Mental imagery is thought to share properties with perception. To what extent does the process of imagining a scene share neural circuits and computational mechanisms with actually perceiving the same scene? Here, we investigated whether mental imagery of motion in a particular direction recruits neural circuits tuned to the same direction of perceptual motion. To address this question we made use of a visual illusion, the motion aftereffect. We found that following prolonged imagery of motion in one direction, people are more likely to perceive real motion test probes as moving in the direction opposite to the direction of motion imagery. The transfer of adaptation from imagined to perceived motion provides evidence that motion imagery and motion perception recruit shared direction-selective neural circuitry. Even in the absence of any visual stimuli, people can selectively recruit specific low-level sensory neurons through mental imagery.     

On ethics in personal construct theory

Abstract

In personal construct theory, people interpret the world in unique ways. Constructions are subjective representations rather than objective truths. This means that our ethical constructions are (a) potentially wrong, if there is an external moral reality we cannot access, or (b) no more inherently defensible than others’ ethical constructions, if all notions of “right” and “wrong” are personally constructed. Constructions promoting violence, hatred, and intolerance are as viable as those promoting peace, love, and acceptance. To overcome this ethical quandary individuals must create meaningful ethical constructions and have faith in them. This is difficult because, as constructivists, we see each person's constructions as legitimate and our own world views as merely constructions, themselves. Implications for moral righteousness are discussed.     

Creative Cognition in Social Innovation

The present article considers the debate between Darwinian and non-Darwinian accounts of creativity from the perspective of little-c (or everyday) creativity. Specifically, the basic arguments found in both positions are highlighted by juxtaposing Simonton's (this issue) empirical analysis of Picasso's Guernica sketches with Weisberg's and Hass's (this issue) analysis. Unresolved issues in this debate are identified and discussed. The body of the article is focused on developing an argument for how these lingering issues might be addressed by expanding empirical studies of Big C (eminent) creative processes to include little c (or everyday) levels of creative magnitude.     

Research Productivity and Performance of Journals in the Creativity Sciences: A Bibliometric Analysis

A bibliometric approach was employed to analyze the research productivity and performance of creativity studies between 1965 and 2012. A dataset was constructed using all publications and citations retrieved from four key journals that publish creativity research: Journal of Creative Behavior (JCB), Gifted Child Quarterly (GCQ), Creativity Research Journal (CRJ), and Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts (PACA). Major findings in this study include: (a) During the study period, the four journals have published 1,891 articles on creativity and they have been cited 11,709 times; (b) the impact factors of the four journals increased from lower than .50 in 2002 to over 1.0 in 2012; in 2012 PACA had the highest impact factor, followed by CRJ; (c) JCB published the most creativity papers and CRJ had the most citations; (d) about a third of the articles published in the four journals have never been cited. Implications for the field of creativity are discussed.     

Pipe organs and satsang: Contemporary worship in Shimla's colonial churches

This article explores two seemingly contrasting types of Christian worship (one led by the pipe organ and the other by satsang), which I repeatedly experienced (between 2006 and 2010) during my fieldwork in Shimla, North India. Although it is often assumed that the pipe organ speaks more to colonial worship and satsang to postcolonial worship, this article demonstrates that both of these styles of worship are actually postcolonial attempts to negotiate colonial history. This suggests a need to complicate contemporary external discussions of the inculturation of Christian worship in India. Furthermore, by focusing on the way that contemporary Christians work with missionary histories to create living landscapes of worship, this article demonstrates that Christian worship is central to the identity of many non-Christian residents and tourists, who are also central to the formation of Christian landscapes of worship. The article concludes by suggesting that these groups also need to be brought into debates about the nature of Christian worship in contemporary India.