Islamic Personal Religion and Moral Reasoning in Social Justice and Equality: The Evidence From Indonesian College Students

Researchers have long been concerned with the relationship between religion and social justice and equality. Hoping to understand this association at the individual level, researchers have taken on the psychological models of personal religion and Kohlberg's moral reasoning. This article extends this line of inquiry to Islam, using Muslim college and graduate students in Indonesia. Specifically, it explores the extent to which religious orientations and Islamic doctrinal orthodoxy relate to Kohlbergian principled reasoning in justice and equality. In view of the results, the Muslim respondents are skewed toward the nonprincipled mode of Kohlbergian moral reasoning. In addition, those with greater intrinsic religiosity are likely to respond in an increasingly principled manner to moral dilemmas, whereas personal extrinsic religiosity tends to increase conventional practice of moral reasoning. Quest religiosity and doctrinal orthodoxy have little to do with Kohlbergian principled reasoning. The implications of these findings are discussed by giving attention to the accent of personal mediation, Islam as a belief system, and congregational worship to principled reasoning in social justice.     

Book Reviews

Building upon previous research on student attitudes to Christianity, an instrument that assesses the perceptions on four Attitude to Christianity dimensions (viz., Attitude to Prayer, God, and Jesus; Attitude to the Bible; Attitude to Christian Practice; and Attitude to Social Justice) was developed. A sample of 1,317 students in Australian Catholic high schools was used to validate this instrument. Comparisons of attitudes to Christianity between students in Catholic boys', girls', and coeducational schools and between students of different age and gender illustrated the usefulness of these four scales.     

Verbal Sexual Coercion Experiences,Sexual Risk,and Substance Use in Women

Research has linked sexual assault, substance use, and sexually transmitted infection (STI) risk in women. Sexual assault by means of verbal sexual coercion (VSC) is more common than sexual assault by means of physical tactics, but VSC is rarely assessed independently. In addition, past work has established global connections among substance use, sexual assault history, and STI risk; however, assessing substance use during sexual behavior is less common. This study examined the relations among VSC, STI risk behavior, and substance use and attitudes. We hypothesized that women with larger numbers of VSC experiences would report more frequent sexual risk behaviors and substance use and attitudes. Participants with larger numbers of VSC experiences reported larger numbers of anal sex partners, more frequent penile–vaginal sex and sexual activity after substance use, and stronger sex-related alcohol expectancies. These findings suggest that VSC is associated with higher levels of STI risk in women.     

EMOTIONAL MEMORIES OF FAMILY RELATIONSHIPS DURING THE HOLOCAUST

This article examines psychosocial aspects of family/parent-child relationships during the Holocaust by focusing on the emotional memories of such relationships. Global and thematic analyses were undertaken on 93 life story interviews and testimonies with Holocaust survivors. Results showed that survivors who lived through most of the war with parents/family and those who had lived approximately an equal time with loved ones and without them were able to recall and narrate more emotional memories, both positive and negative, than people who had experienced the traumatic period mostly on their own. However, going through the war with family did not guarantee the narration of emotional memories; close to half of these victims could not recall/narrate such memories. In general, when the survivor recalled relative emotional security, she or he felt safe, even when physical danger was imminent. However, this feeling did not always continue when the physical situation worsened or when the survivor was separated from loved ones. It was suggested that the ability to recall and narrate emotional memories highlights the heterogeneity in family relationships that existed during the Holocaust and the kinds of family relationships that developed after the Holocaust.     

Biopsychosocial correlates of weight status perception in Australian adolescents

This study examined the utility of the biopsychosocial model to predict accuracy of weight status perception among Australian adolescents. The factors included in this framework were: age, gender, and BMI-z (biological factors); satisfaction with body weight and shape (psychological factors); socioeconomic status, peer weight (social factors). Cross-sectional data, including measured height and weight, and self-reported weight status, was obtained from 2954 adolescents (mean age = 14.6, 56% male) who participated in the It's Your Move! study. Accuracy of weight status perception was associated with gender, BMI-z, SES, and weight and shape satisfaction. Gender differences in weight status perception were moderated by satisfaction with weight. In boys, weight satisfaction was associated with perceived healthy weight; in girls, it was associated with perceived healthy weight and underweight. Moderately overweight adolescents are most at risk of underestimating their weight status and could benefit from education about the boundaries of the healthy weight range.     

Can there be reasoning with degrees of belief?

In this paper I am concerned with the question of whether degrees of belief can figure in reasoning processes that are executed by humans. It is generally accepted that outright beliefs and intentions can be part of reasoning processes, but the role of degrees of belief remains unclear. The literature on subjective Bayesianism, which seems to be the natural place to look for discussions of the role of degrees of belief in reasoning, does not address the question of whether degrees of belief play a role in real agents’ reasoning processes. On the other hand, the philosophical literature on reasoning, which relies much less heavily on idealizing assumptions about reasoners than Bayesianism, is almost exclusively concerned with outright belief. One possible explanation for why no philosopher has yet developed an account of reasoning with degrees of belief is that reasoning with degrees of belief is not possible for humans. In this paper, I will consider three arguments for this claim. I will show why these arguments are flawed, and conclude that, at least as far as these arguments are concerned, it seems like there is no good reason why the topic of reasoning with degrees of belief has received so little attention.     

The German Adaptation and Standardization of the Personality Assessment Inventory (PAI)

An attempt was made to evaluate the relationship between left-handedness and oppositional tendencies through the use of the White Space (S) response on the Rorschach. Right and left-handed males were administered the Rorschach, and it was found that the left-handed subjects gave significantly more S responses than did the right-handed males. It was felt that the results of this study indicated the existence of a relationship between hand-preference and oppositional tendency. Caution was raised concerning the assumption that oppositional tendencies foster left-handedness. It was pointed out that opposition could also be produced by being left-handed.     

Perception of acoustically presented time series with varied intervals

Data from three experiments on serial perception of temporal intervals in the supra-second domain are reported. Sequences of short acoustic signals (“pips”) separated by periods of silence were presented to the observers. Two types of time series, geometric or alternating, were used, where the modulus 1 + δ of the inter-pip series and the base duration T_b (range from 1.1 to 6 s) were varied as independent parameters. The observers had to judge whether the series were accelerating, decelerating, or uniform (3 paradigm), or to distinguish regular from irregular sequences (2 paradigm). “Intervals of subjective uniformity” (isus) were obtained by fitting Gaussian psychometric functions to individual subjects' responses. Progression towards longer base durations (T_b = 4.4 or 6 s) shifts the isus towards negative δs, i.e., accelerating series. This finding is compatible with the phenomenon of “subjective shortening” of past temporal intervals, which is naturally accounted for by the lossy integration model of internal time representation. The opposite effect observed for short durations (T_b = 1.1 or 1.5 s) remains unexplained by the lossy integration model, and presents a challenge for further research.