The Muslim community and English law

This article addresses what are perceived as being the main areas of English law likely to present Muslims in Britain with problems or difficulties. Some English legal provisions relating to the family, education and religious freedom are inconsistent with Islamic beliefs and practices. While English law has to be obeyed by all those living in England, there are plenty of opportunities for Muslims to exploit its liberal principles and practical flexibility to suit their own needs. Furthermore, English law can be reformed to make it more consonant with the values and traditions of minority faiths, as the Sikhs have recently demonstrated. So far, Muslim pressure groups have failed to achieve similar reforms and some possible explanations for this are given. The future emphasis of the English legal system should lie in promoting cultural and religious pluralism, within a set of shared core values, and various concrete suggestions for change are offered.

This article is based on a paper given at Cumberland Lodge, Windsor on 29 November 1991 to a conference on ‘Islam: The British Experience’ organized by the St. Catherine's Foundation.     

Clarifying body-image disturbance: analysis of a multidimensional model using structural modeling

A multidimensional model of body-image disturbance was tested. The model incorporated the concepts of body-size distortion, preference for thinness, body dissatisfaction, and fear of fatness as predictors of restrictive eating. The LISREL 7 program was used to perform a structural modeling analysis of the theoretical model. A total of 175 women participated in the study (54 eating-disordered patients and 121 undergraduate students). The results supported the hypothesized four-dimensional model relative to alternative one-, two-, and three-dimensional models. Body dissatisfaction appeared to be directly affected by both body-size distortion and preference for thinness. Fear of fatness was found to be the best predictor of restrictive eating. The results appeared consistent across the clinical and nonclinical samples. These data may help resolve many of the current controversies in the body-image literature. The results also suggested the need to develop more sound assessment instruments for fear of fatness.     

Modulation of Amygdala Response by Cognitive Conflict in Adolescents with Conduct Problems and Varying Levels of CU Traits

Research on Child and Adolescent Psychopathology - Adolescents with conduct problems and low callous-unemotional traits are characterised by high levels of reactive aggression. Prior studies...     

Mysticism without concepts

International Journal for Philosophy of Religion - It has often been claimed, e.g. by William James or Aldous Huxley, that mystical experiences across times and cultures exhibit a striking...     

Breaking the Habit: On the Highly Habitualized Nature of Meat Consumption and Implementation Intentions as One Effective Way of Reducing It

Reducing meat consumption is an important element of an effective climate protection strategy, but meat consumption is highly habitualized and therefore difficult to change. This article uses an extended version of the theory of planned behavior with habit strength as additional predictor. In one longitudinal (N?=?227) and one prospective correlational study (N?=?212), attitudes toward and perceived ease of meat consumption reduction explained about 60% of variance of meat consumption reduction intentions, with habit strength being the strongest correlate of actual self-reported meat consumption. A third experimental study (N?=?192) demonstrated that implementation intentions can be an effective strategy for realizing reduction aims. We discuss the central role of habits for meat consumption.     

Fine motor skills enhance lexical processing of embodied vocabulary: A test of the nimble-hands,nimble-minds hypothesis

Research suggests that fine motor skills (FMS) are linked to aspects of cognitive development in children. Additionally, lexical processing advantages exist for words implying a high body–object interaction (BOI), with initial findings indicating that such words in turn link to children’s FMS—for which we propose and evaluate four competing hypotheses. First, a maturational account argues that any links between FMS and lexical processing should not exist once developmental variables are controlled for. Second, functionalism posits that any link between FMS and lexical processing arises due to environmental interactions. Third, the semantic richness hypothesis argues that sensorimotor input improves lexical processing, but predicts no links between FMS and lexical processing. A fourth account, the nimble-hands, nimble minds (NHNM) hypothesis, proposes that having greater FMS improves lexical processing for high-BOI words. In two experiments, the response latencies of preschool children (n?=?90, n?=?76, ages?=?5;1) to 45 lexical items encompassing high-BOI, low-BOI, and less imageable words were measured, alongside measures of FMS, reasoning, and general receptive/expressive vocabulary. High-BOI words appeared to show unique links to FMS, which remained after accounting for low-BOI and less imageable words, general vocabulary, reasoning, and chronological age. Although further work is needed, the findings provide initial support for the NHNM hypothesis.     

Impact of perceived value on casual mobile game loyalty: The moderating effect of intensity of playing

The retention rate of mobile game players is one of the subjects that spark most interest in the industry, as many abandon the games only a few hours after downloading them. This study examines the antecedents of loyalty towards mobile games from the perspective of perceived value and explores the moderating effect of intensity of playing. The results revealed that hedonic value (i.e., perceived enjoyment and perceived attractiveness) and, to a lesser extent, utilitarian value (i.e., effort expectancy and perceived usefulness) are crucial in the loyalty that players feel towards mobile games. Intensity of playing weakens the relationship between perceived usefulness, perceived enjoyment and loyalty intention. Based on the findings, theoretical and practical implications are provided.     

Positive and negative intergroup contact and shared reality: Contact effects among host society and refugees

Two cross-sectional studies examined the relationship between positive and negative intergroup contact and shared reality from a majority and a minority group perspective and indirect effects via two types of intergroup threat (threat to identity for the majority, discrimination fear for the minority) and differential closeness. Research was conducted in the context of German–Syrian relations to contrast contact effects on shared reality among German host society members and Syrian refugees. Study 1 revealed unique and asymmetrical effects of valenced contact on shared reality and indirect effects via threat to identity and differential closeness (N = 226). In Study 2, positive contact among Syrian refugees (N = 121) increased shared reality via differential closeness. Negative contact showed no relation to shared reality, but mediation analyses indicated an indirect effect via discrimination fear. Differences between majority and minority contact effects on shared reality are discussed along with the studies’ limitations and implications.     

The force and the content of judgment

This essay explores what it means to reject Frege's distinction of force and content: the rejection completes Frege's anti‐psychologism as it leaves no space for a psychological concept of judgment distinct from the logical concept, which is the concern of no empirical science, but of logic. It emerges that logic, as the science of judgement, is — not a metaphysics of judgement, but — metaphysics. And it emerges that the opposition of subject to subject — the elementary nexus of thinker to thinker in dialogue — is contained within the logical concept of judgment.