Skepticism: Genuine unbelief or implicit beliefs in the supernatural?

We examined whether skeptics hold implicit supernatural beliefs or implicit cognitive underpinnings of the beliefs. In study 1 (N = 57), participants read a biological or a religious story about death. The story content had no effect on skeptics’ (or believers’) afterlife beliefs. Study 2 examined the relationships between religious and non-religious paranormal beliefs and implicit views about whether supernatural and religious phenomena are imaginary or real (n1 = 33, n2 = 31). The less supernatural beliefs were endorsed the easier it was to connect “supernatural” with “imaginary”. Study 3 (N = 63) investigated whether participants’ supernatural beliefs and ontological confusions differ between speeded and non-speeded response conditions. Only non-analytical skeptics’ ontological confusions increased in speeded conditions. The results indicate that skeptics overall do not hold implicit supernatural beliefs, but that non-analytically thinking skeptics may, under supporting conditions, be prone to biases that predispose to supernatural beliefs.     

Someone is pulling the strings: hypersensitive agency detection and belief in conspiracy theories

We hypothesised that belief in conspiracy theories would be predicted by the general tendency to attribute agency and intentionality where it is unlikely to exist. We further hypothesised that this tendency would explain the relationship between education level and belief in conspiracy theories, where lower levels of education have been found to be associated with higher conspiracy belief. In Study 1 (N = 202) participants were more likely to agree with a range of conspiracy theories if they also tended to attribute intentionality and agency to inanimate objects. As predicted, this relationship accounted for the link between education level and belief in conspiracy theories. We replicated this finding in Study 2 (N = 330), whilst taking into account beliefs in paranormal phenomena. These results suggest that education may undermine the reasoning processes and assumptions that are reflected in conspiracy belief.     

Changing teachers' beliefs regarding autonomy support and structure: The role of experienced psychological need satisfaction in teacher training

ObjectivesGrounded in Self-Determination Theory, this study examined whether physical education (PE) teachers' psychological need satisfaction experienced during continuous professional development (CPD) on need-supportive teaching predicted changes in their effectiveness and feasibility beliefs regarding the proposed teaching approach, as well as their intentions to apply this approach and subsequent changes in their self-reported in-class behaviors.MethodsPrior to the training, a sample of 80 PE teachers (57.5% men, Mage = 42.70 ± 10.15 years) reported on their effectiveness and feasibility beliefs regarding autonomy-supportive and structuring teaching strategies and their in-class application of these strategies. Immediately following the training, these beliefs were assessed again and participants reported on their psychological need satisfaction experienced during the training and their intentions to apply the proposed strategies. Finally, two weeks after the training, participants' self-reported in-class application of the teaching strategies was measured for the second time.ResultsPsychological need satisfaction experienced during the training related to a change in effectiveness and feasibility beliefs regarding autonomy support and structure, and to teachers' intentions to apply the proposed strategies as reported immediately after receiving the training. In addition, teachers' intentions related to a change in their self-reported in-class application of structuring, but not autonomy-supportive, teaching strategies.ConclusionsExperiences of psychological need satisfaction during CPD can help to increase the likelihood that teachers become more convinced about the effectiveness and feasibility of the proposed change and can produce greater intentions toward change, which may relate to actual (albeit) self-reported behavior change.     

Hijab in the American workplace: visibility and discrimination

While the initial purpose of this article was to outline online collective action (OCA) towards promoting the rights of hijab-wearing Muslim women in the workplace, it became apparent that there were substantial impediments to this solidarity. Thus, the bulk of it takes up these obstacles, arguing that American hijabis face structural discrimination and Muslims in the United States are subjected to heightened discrimination when they are highly visible to the mainstream culture. This article reviews two cases of workplace discrimination against hijabis and the reactions to these incidents on the Huffington Post, Los Angeles Times, and hijab-oriented blogs. Findings indicate that intolerance of Muslims is prevalent across various political affiliations and apprehension associated with hijabi rights could be related to the perceived decline of white privilege. The analysis also demonstrates that there may be impediments to solidarity with hijabi rights within Muslim communities due to disagreements on the Qur’anic mandate of modesty, divergent perspectives on how Muslims can best promote their rights and ensure their safety, and misunderstandings related to the rights guaranteed under reasonable accommodation. Despite the various obstacles to solidarity with hijabis, the article traces various forms of OCA at local, national and international levels that were encountered on social media platforms.     

KAGAWA TOYOHIKO (1888–1960): WITNESS TO THE COSMIC DRAMA

At home and abroad, Kagawa Toyohiko was probably the best‐known Japanese Christian evangelist, social reformer, writer, and public intellectual of the twentieth century, nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature twice (1947, 1948) and the Nobel Peace Prize three times (1954, 1955, 1956). Appealing to the masses with little knowledge of Christian faith, Kagawa believed that a positive, religio‐aesthetic interpretation of nature and science was a key missiological concern in Japan. He reasoned that a faith rooted in the kenotic movement of incarnation and self‐giving must strongly support the scientific quest. A voracious reader of science and especially biology, he argues for “directionality,” or what he calls “initial purpose” in the long, painful, cosmic journey from matter to life to mind (or consciousness). Through an antireductionistic, a posteriori methodological pluralism that sought to “see all things whole,” this “scientific mystic” employed Christian, Buddhist, Neo‐Confucian, personalist, and vitalist ideas to envision complementary roles for science and religion in modern society.     

Instructor and student knowledge of study strategies

Students' self-reported study skills and beliefs are often inconsistent with empirically supported (ES) study strategies. However, little is known regarding instructors' beliefs about study skills and if such beliefs differ from those of students. In the current study, we surveyed college students' and instructors' knowledge of study strategies and had both groups evaluate the efficacy of learning strategies described in six learning scenarios. Results from the survey indicated that students frequently reported engaging in methods of studying that were not optimal for learning. Instructors' responses to the survey indicated that they endorsed a number of effective study skills but also held several beliefs inconsistent with research in learning and memory (e.g., learning styles). Further, results from the learning scenarios measure indicated that instructors were moderately more likely than students to endorse ES learning strategies. Collectively, these data suggest that instructors exhibited better knowledge of effective study skills than students, although the difference was small. We discuss several notable findings and argue for the improvement of both students' and instructors' study skill knowledge.     

Palestinian Educational Philosophy Between Past and Present

The article discuses the education issue as a central and decisive factor inshaping, reproducing and representing individual and collective identity.I present the Palestinian case study because the Palestinian people are atthe present in a very critical period of constructing their national identityand education is part of the nation-building project. I have chosen to studytwo periods in the life of Palestinians, 1972 during the revolution and thepresent 1999 the start of the establishment of an independent Palestinianentity and to examine how the economic, social, political conditions etc.affect the formation of the educational philosophy of those periods; aneducational philosophy that will affect the formation of education and theformation of private and collective consciousness.     

大学生控制信念及其与人际信任的关系

以290名大学生为被试,采用量表法考察其控制信念和人际信任的特点及两变量之间的关系。结果表明,（1）被试的认知控制信念得分最高,情感控制最低,直接控制和间接控制信念得分居中;且控制信念得分存在显著性别和生源地差异,女生的认知控制和情感控制得分都高于男生,农村生源学生的间接控制信念得分显著低于城市生源学生;（2）被试人际信任得分较低,且不存在性别和生源地差异;（3）控制信念与人际信任的关系因被试性别和生源地的不同而有差异,对于女生和农村生源大学生来说,直接控制、认知控制信念得分越高,人际信任得分也越高;而对     

Self-relevance enhances susceptibility to false memory

Eyewitness testimony serves as important evidence in the legal system. Eyewitnesses of a crime can be either the victims themselves—for whom the experience is highly self-referential—or can be bystanders who witness and thus encode the crime in relation to others. There is a gap in past research investigating whether processing information in relation to oneself versus others would later impact people's suggestibility to misleading information. In two experiments (Ns = 68 and 122) with Dutch and Chinese samples, we assessed whether self-reference of a crime event (i.e., victim vs. bystander) affected their susceptibility to false memory creation. Using a misinformation procedure, we photoshopped half of the participants' photographs into a crime slideshow so that they saw themselves as victims of a nonviolent crime, while others watched the slideshow as mock bystander witnesses. In both experiments, participants displayed a self-enhanced suggestibility effect: Participants who viewed themselves as victims created more false memories after receiving misinformation than those who witnessed the same crime as bystanders. These findings suggest that self-reference might constitute a hitherto new risk factor in the formation of false memories when evaluating eyewitness memory reports.