Notes on Diversity and Working Together Across Cultures on Traumatization and Forgiveness: Siblings by Choice

The article addresses problems of severe collective traumatization by wars and discrimination not only for victims and perpetrators but also for the generations of children, nephews, and grandchildren. Two historical processes are exemplified in biographical experiences, slavery and oppression of African-American families, and the effects of Nazi ideology and World War II on German and Czech population. Aspects of forgiveness and healing are presented and discussed. One model of dissolving collective animosity and denial is explored in the intentional cooperation of caregivers and trainers in pastoral care and counseling from different cultures and religious traditions: siblings in struggle, siblings by choice.     

The influence of gender,social roles,and facial appearance on perceived emotionality

One of the most pervasive gender stereotypes in Western culture concerns expectations regarding men's and women's emotionality. Whereas men are expected to be anger prone, women are expected to smile more. At the same time, men are generally perceived as more facially dominant and facially dominant individuals are expected to show more anger. That is, both facial appearance and social role expectations would lead observers to expect men to show more anger. The present research had the goal to disentangle the unique contribution of these two factors. As it is impossible in our society to fully untangle the influence of these factors since they are highly confounded, we created an alien society where these factors could be unconfounded. In this alien world, Deluvia, child rearing is exclusively assumed by a third gender, the caregiver, whereas men and women share the same social roles. The facial appearance of the Deluvians was varied along the dominance continuum. The results showed that facially dominant Deluvians, regardless of gender, were expected to show more anger, disgust, and contempt and less happiness, fear, sadness, and surprise. Also, the nurturing caregivers were expected to show less anger, contempt, and disgust as well as more fear, sadness, and surprise, regardless of facial appearance. No effect of gender per se on perceived emotionality was found. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Examining the Dynamics of the Implicit and the Explicit Self-Concept in Social Anxiety: Changes in the Implicit Association Test–Anxiety and the Social Phobia Anxiety Inventory Following Treatment

Data from the first two childhood memories was used to distinguish 15 delinquents from 18 nondelinquent controls. Subjects were male, middle class, 15-17 years of age, and equated for verbal IQ. All delinquents were property offenders. A coding system, devised from the memories of the delinquents and nondelinquents, successfully identified 80% of the delinquents and 100% of the nondelinquents. These prediction rates exceeded those from three clinicians experienced in working with a comparable delinquent population The coding system was then discussed in terms of the axioms and presuppositions which are suggested by the memories of the delinquent sample.     

WORK ADJUSTMENT AND THE EDUCABLE MENTALLY RETARDED ADOLESCENT

Various attempts to measure the vocational adjustment of educable mentally retarded adolescents are reported. Most of the research conducted was found to be restricted to the identification of problems in job adjustment or the skills and habits which contributed to such adjustment. Most work maladjustments of educable mentally retarded adolescents were, in general, attributed to poor interpersonal skills. Attempts to construct various tests which would measure job success for these adolescents are also reported.     

The role of emotion transition for the perception of social dominance and affiliation

Individuals who show anger are rated as higher in dominance and lower in affiliation, whereas those who express sadness are rated lower in dominance and higher in affiliation. Little is known about situations where people show both expressions in sequence as happens when a first emotional reaction is followed by a second, different one. This question was examined in two studies. Overall, we found that the last emotion shown had a strong impact on perceived behavioural intentions. However, the information about the previously shown emotion was also integrated. The specific mode of integration was dependent on the salience of the change and naive theories about the type of person who changes their emotion in the face of changing events.     

Argumentational Integrity: A Training Program for Dealing with Unfair Argumentative Contributions

In this article we present a training program based on the empirical research conducted in the project 'argumentational integrity'. After a brief sketch of the problem dimensions concerning unfair argumentation we give an overview of the training concept and the underlying empirical research. Exemplification of the instructional design is given for the second and the fifth training dimension (standards of argumentational integrity and reactions to unfair contributions). Finally we indicate how the training is to be evaluated and present initial results demonstrating that in comparison with an untrained control group participants in the training significantly improve their skills in identifying and naming argumentative rule violations.     

Causality and Subjectivity in the Religious Quest

The dynamics of seeking causation and the dynamics of subjectivity are presented and then brought together in a consideration of the three core components of the religious quest: the search for and experience of ultimate explanations, the interiority of religious experience ("spirituality"), and the empathic experience of religious fellowship.     

Assessing the Impact of a Paid Children,Youth, or Family Worker on Anglican Congregations in England

Drawing on the survey conducted by Christian Research and commissioned by the Youthscape Centre for Research and One Hope, this study examined the impact of a paid children, youth, or family worker on the weekly attendance of 5- to 18-year-old children within 786 Church of England churches with adult attendance ranging from 20 to 250 people. Nearly one-third of these churches had a paid children, youth, or family worker (N?=?259). The data demonstrated that on average the presence of a paid children, youth, or family worker added seven young people between the ages of 5 and 18 years to the total weekly Sunday attendance, after controlling for the weekly adult attendance figures.     

Who is a Religious Naturalist?

This article introduces Religious Naturalism, an inclusive collection of belief systems focused on one central commitment: current understandings of the natural world remain undistorted by religious believing. Religious naturalists seek to develop coherent and satisfying meta-versions of their interpretive, spiritual, and moral responses to the natural world.