Ecumenical and Inter‐religious Contributions to Asian Liberation Theologies

This essay surveys the varieties of liberation theologies that have emerged in different religious communities across Asia. It explores how Asian liberation theologians from across the major religious traditions of Asia have sought answers from within their own religious traditions and social locations to the endemic persistence of mass poverty, exploitative socio‐economic structures, and oppressive political systems that often deny basic human and democratic rights to the poor and marginalized masses in Asia. The article's basic premise is that liberation and social justice are not monopolies of Christianity, but are found across the great religious traditions of Asia, and it highlights examples such as Mahatma Gandhi in Indian Hinduism, B. R. Ambedkar in Indian Buddhism, and Buddhadasa Bhikkhu in Thai Buddhism. Christian examples include Aloysius Pieris (Sri Lanka), Dalit and indigenous tribal theologies from India, and Minjung theology from Korea.     

Working for the Hierarchical System: The Role of Meritocratic Ideology in the Endorsement of Corruption

Corruption has a wide range of corrosive effects on societies, but it is widespread throughout the world. There is a question, however, as to whether corruption is endorsed as an outcome of a legitimate hierarchy and meritocracy. To address this issue, the present study examines the associations between meritocratic ideology and the indicators of corruption by performing two empirical studies with correlational and experimental designs. In Study 1, all variables were measured with scales, and the results demonstrated that meritocratic ideologies were negatively associated with corruption perception but positively associated with corrupt intention. In Study 2, meritocratic ideology was manipulated, and the results demonstrated that compared with the low meritocratic‐ideology condition, the participants primed by the high meritocratic‐ideology condition reported a lower corruption perception but higher corrupt intention. In both studies, the findings suggest that the meritocratic ideology that motivates people to maintain and bolster the current hierarchical structure and meritocracy leads to the endorsement of corruption. The present study explores the roles of meritocratic ideology in the perception and intention of corruption, extends the scope of the predictive power of system justification theory to corruption beyond mere injustice‐related aspects of disadvantage, and also provides suggestions for interpreting and fighting against corruption.     

Resisting the Devil: The Case of Edward Dynham (1626) and Options for English Protestant Dispossession

To the displeasure of many puritans, the Church of England canons of 1604 restricted the casting out of Devils to prayer and fasting. Yet after that date not all possession cases disappeared, nor were all dismissed as false. This article explores ways that long-standing general Protestant as well as puritan theology and practices (especially related to ‘resisting the Devil’) informed post-1604 anti-demonic activity. With a clear biblical basis, and primarily as an individual rather than collective practice, resisting the Devil was embraced by people from a wide range of religious positions and remained unrestricted by the religious establishment. There was variation; not everyone approved of how resisting the Devil was applied in particular cases. Yet ample evidence suggests that dispossessions led by lay people, and by means other than prayer and fasting, did in fact have a place within (and influenced the development of) Protestantism in early-modern England.     

Singaporean education students' perceptions of knowledge and skills as important for teachers

This paper examined perceptions of knowledge and skills important for teachers of 353 Singaporean undergraduate students. They rated higher teaching and nurturing skills and gave moderate ratings to theoretical knowledge and research skills. There is a need to raise teachers' awareness of educational research and theoretical innovation for classroom practice.     

Rhythms of life: antecedents and outcomes of work-family balance in employed parents

This study examined antecedents and outcomes of a fourfold taxonomy of work-family balance in terms of the direction of influence (work-family vs. family-work) and type of effect (conflict vs. facilitation). Respondents were full-time employed parents in India. Confirmatory factor analysis results provided evidence for the discriminant validity of M. R. Frone's (2003) fourfold taxonomy of work-family balance. Results of moderated regression analysis revealed that different processes underlie the conflict and facilitation components. Furthermore, gender had only a limited moderating influence on the relationships between the antecedents and the components of work-family balance. Last, work-family facilitation was related to the work outcomes of job satisfaction and organizational commitment.     

Antecedents and outcomes of union loyalty: a constructive replication and an extension

Primary data obtained from unionized employees in Singapore were used to examine P. A. Bamberger, A. N. Kluger, and R. Suchard's (1999) integrative model of the antecedents and outcomes of union commitment. Structural equation modeling results revealed support for their integrative model. Specifically, the results revealed the influence of job satisfaction on union loyalty to be indirect through organizational commitment. However, the union-related antecedents (union socialization and union instrumentality) were both directly and indirectly related to union loyalty through pro-union attitudes. In addition, union loyalty was related to the individually and organizationally directed union citizenship behavior dimensions. Limitations of the study and implications of the findings are discussed.     

Sex-specific finger-length patterns linked to behavioral variables: consistency across various human populations

In humans, as in nonhuman primates, the digits of the hands are similar in length during early fetal development. Subsequently, differentiation leads to a patter of unequal finger lengths, described by George as the finger-length pattern. Recent work by Manning and colleagues suggested that digit length patterns are due to early influences of sex hormones. Most importantly for psychology, such patterns might also relate to cognitive activities that are influenced by early organizing actions of sex hormones. The exciting possibility of having an easily measurable indicator of early action of sex hormones that relates to behavior led us to examine the universality of digit length patterns. With samples from Brazil, Canada, India, Turkey, and Korea, we showed that patterns of distal extent of finger tips are similar across different human populations. Consistent sex differences were found across the samples, showing that the index finger in males extends less far distally relative to the middle finger than is the case for females and that the difference in distal extent between index and ring fingers, relative to the middle finger, is smaller in females than in males.     

Stereotypes and steroids: using a psychobiosocial model to understand cognitive sex differences

To further our understanding of cognitive sex differences, we studied the relationship between menstrual phase (via serum estradiol and progesterone levels) and cognitive abilities and cognitive performance in a sample of medical students in eastern Turkey. As expected, we found no sex differences on the Cattell "Culture Fair Intelligence Test" (a figural reasoning test), with females scoring significantly higher on a Turkish version of the Finding A's Test (rapid word knowledge) and males scoring significantly higher on a paper-and-pencil mental rotation test. The women showed a slight enhancement on the Finding A's Test and a slight decrement in Cattell scores during the preovulatory phase of their cycle that (probably) coincided with a rise in estrogen. There were also small cycle-related enhancements in performance for these women on the mental rotation test that may reflect cyclical increases in estrogen and progesterone. Additional analyses showed an inverted U-shaped function in level of estradiol and the Cattell Test. Finally, for women who were tested on Day 10 of their menstrual cycle, there was a negative linear relationship between their Cattell scores and level of progesterone. Stereotypes about the cognitive abilities of males and females did not correspond to performance on the mental rotation or Finding A's Test, so the sex-typical results could not be attributed to either stereotype threat or stereotype activation. For practical purposes, hormone-related effects were generally small. Variations over the menstrual cycle do not provide evidence for a "smarter" sex, but they do further our understanding of steroidal action on human cognitive performance.     

Evaluating the filial behaviour scale across three cultural groups using exploratory structural equation modelling

Filial piety is a Confucian concept that guides how children treat and take care of their parents. The Filial Behaviour Scale (FBS) is a 25-item instrument developed in the Chinese context measuring behavioural manifestations of filial piety. Although the components of filial piety have been found to be relevant across cultures, little research has investigated the psychometric properties of the FBS in other cultural contexts. The present study evaluated the factor structure, internal consistency, measurement invariance and construct validity of the FBS across three cultural groups: the United States, Italy and Malaysia. Participants were 1090 emerging adults (67% females; M_age = 21.29 years, SD = 1.97; White Americans: n = 455, White Italians: n = 428, Malays: n = 328). A two-factor structure emerged across groups: Obedience/Obligation (behaviours showing obedience and obligation towards parents) and Relationship (behaviours expressing affection and promoting positive parent–child relationships). The two factors demonstrated adequate internal consistency, full configural, partial metric and partial scalar invariance, as well as unique associations with depressive symptoms and parent–child relationships across groups. These findings yielded a more nuanced understanding of filial behaviour and supported the utility of a two-factor FBS among emerging adults in various cultural contexts.