Political intolerance: the role of intergroup threat and negative intergroup emotion

This study investigated whether the perception of intergroup threat, and intergroup emotion, are related to political intolerance. One hundred and twenty three South African undergraduate students (females?=?76%; males?=?24%; White?=?65%; Coloured?=?24%; Indian?=?8%; Chinese?=?2%; mean age =?19.8, SD?=?3.03 years) were randomly assigned to either a heightened (n?=?68) or low intergroup threat condition (n?=?55). Data on intergroup threat, intergroup emotion and political intolerance were collected utilising a questionnaire. T-test effect comparisons including multiple regression analyses were computed to determine effects of intergroup threat and negative intergroup emotion on political intolerance. Results revealed negative intergroup emotion and perceived intergroup threat to predict political intolerance. Negative intergroup emotion mediated the relationship between perceived threat and political intolerance. These findings suggest that intergroup threat may lead to the rise of negative intergroup emotion which in turn creates an environment conducive to the development of political intolerance.     

‘Between Rome and Constantinople’: the Italian-Albanian Church: a study in Eastern Catholic history and ecclesiology

This article examines the Eastern Christian presence on the Italian Peninsula and the Island of Sicily; the settlement of Albanian Christians after the Ottoman conquest of the Balkans, the emergence of a distinct Italo-Albanian Church and the jurisdictional arrangements made to accomodate this. Concentrating on the period from the 15th century onwards, from the arrival of large numbers of Eastern Christian Albanians in southern Italy and Sicily, the article examines the unique arrangement between Rome and Constantinople, from the Council of Florence (1439) to the Council of Trent (1545–1563), when the Orthodox Bishop of Ohrid provided ecclesial jurisdiction, an arrangement which has no direct historical parallel. The article highlights the work of the eighteenth-century historian Pietro Pompilio Rodotà (who related the two distinct phases of Eastern Christian presence, for historical, cultural, ethnic and linguistic reasons, to the development of the general category of the ‘Greek Rite’) and more contemporary attempts by some Italo-Albanians to establish a metropolitanate (posing questions for the relationship of the Italo-Greek Monastery of Grottaferrata to any future Italo-Albanian ecclesial body). The history and tradition of the Italian-Albanian Church and of the Monastery of Grottaferrata, present a unique and significant Eastern Christian–Eastern Catholic presence in Italy, raising important questions for ecumenism and ecclesiolgy in Europe today.     

The Anglican Covenant proposed by the Lambeth Commission 1

Abstract

The Lambeth Commission (2004) proposed a number of short-term and long-term solutions to issues raised by recent and highly controversial developments in the Episcopal Church (USA) and the diocese of New Westminster (Canada). From these events have emerged important questions about the nature of communion between, and the autonomy of, each of the 44 member churches of the Anglican Communion, and the way in which decisions of common concern are made. In order to consolidate this communion, as a long-term project, the Commission proposes the adoption of an Anglican Covenant by all 44 churches of the Communion. This article describes the terms of the proposed Covenant and identifies their provenance, in order to establish that the proposal is for the most part a restatement of classical Anglicanism. Only in serious cases of disagreement which substantially risk the unity of the Communion is the proposal innovative. The article also describes briefly reactions to and possible implementation of the proposed Covenant.     

From state church to faith community: an analysis of worldly and spiritual power in the Church of Sweden

The aim of this article is to discuss the current legislation, and power structures in and between different levels of the Church of Sweden in terms of church–state relations and secularisation, with the help of theories from sociology of religion and ecclesiology drawn from José Casanova, Grace Davie and Avery Dulles. With themes from Lutheran theology, including the two regiments and the common priesthood of all believers, we analyse the current legislation and power structures from the perspective of the so-called ‘dual line of responsibility’. The underlying hypothesis is that the structures of the former state church are still deciding the power structures in the Church of Sweden. This creates obscurity concerning the role of the church in public society and negatively affects the ecclesiastical development of the church now that it has lost its earlier status as a state church.     

Ethical Challenges for Jewish Long Term Care Providers

ABSTRACT

This article discusses the particular ethical challenges and opportunities facing Jewish long term care providers. The discussion begins with background on Jewish healthcare ethics generally and then notes several problems in applying traditional principles in concrete situations today. Specific ethical dilemmas characterizing long term care are described, and their implications for practice within Jewish facilities are explicated. Finally, suggestions are offered regarding special contributions that can be made to both the Jewish community and the larger society by bringing the perspective of Jewish healthcare ethics to the arena of long term care provision and policy-making for aging citizens.     

Multicriteria Classification with Unknown Categories: A Clustering–Sorting Approach and an Application to Conflict Management

This work proposes an approach to cluster and sort a set of alternatives considering multi‐criteria categories with a partial order structure. It can be considered a heuristic approach because it does not attempt to derive an optimal partial order among all conceivable clusters of alternatives. Rather than this, it intends to be a simple approach that is transparent to the Decision Maker (DM) whose assistance is sought to help shaping the results. The approach proposed arises from the conjugation of traditional Clustering analysis and Multi‐criteria sorting tools. At the outset, the number of categories and their characteristics is unknown. First, we need to detect only the clusters themselves on the basis of a similarity measure independent of the preferences of the DM. Next, we detect potential partial order relations that might exist between them, according to the subjective preferences of the DM. Such preferences are elicited only after the DM has examined the clusters detected and deemed that these categories made sense. The new approach performs very well in a real‐world problem of management of intragroup conflicts and conflict handling strategies. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A Review of Reviews Examining Neurological Processes Relevant to Impact of Parental PTSD on Military Children: Implications for Supporting Resilience

In this study, 10 recent meta-analytic and systematic review studies were synthesized on the neurological underpinnings of stress and trauma with implications for the impact of parental post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and resilience among military children. Following Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) group guidelines and utilizing a validated quality assessment tool, this systematic review of reviews incorporated results from more than 35,971 individuals with stress exposures, effects, or disorders and healthy controls. This synthesis found support for important gene, physiology, and environment correlations and interactions that predict increased risk for stressful life events and PTSD, but not direct transmission, among military children. Future research is needed to determine if these constitute indirect pathways of intergenerational transmission in military children.     

Adventure based counselling,individual counselling and object relations: a critical evaluation of a qualitative study

Adventure based counselling is a short-term experiential psychotherapeutic approach, which utilises adventurous activities and being in natural environmental in order to facilitate therapeutic change in clients. The present paper critically appraises the results of a qualitative study that investigated how clients with self-reported anxiety and depression experienced participating in an innovative counselling intervention with combined individual counselling with such an adventurous outdoor transaction. Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis, as described by Smith and Osborn (2008), was used in order record and analyse the experiences of four male and six female students who were treated at the Teesside's University Counselling Service. Interviewees perceived the counselling sessions as offering a safe therapeutic space within which they could unveil their anxieties and achieve inner healing, whereas the outdoor transaction as providing an experiential venue for achieving personal change. Interviewees felt that without the outdoor transaction the therapeutic significance of the counselling process would not have reached its full potential. Likewise, without the individual counselling, the outdoor transaction would just have an entertaining event and not a venue for personal change. These findings are discussed in relation to object relations theory.     

Intergroup retaliation and intra‐group praise gain: The effect of expected cooperation from the in‐group on intergroup vicarious retribution

Intergroup vicarious retribution is the phenomenon whereby, after an out‐group member attacks an in‐group member, a member of the victim's group retaliates against a member of the perpetrator's group. This study examined the effect of expected cooperation from the in‐group on intergroup vicarious retribution through intra‐group reputation based on praise gain and exclusion avoidance. In the experiment, we conducted a one‐on‐one match in which, after participants learned that an out‐group member (as the winner) had imposed a fine on an in‐group member (as the loser) in a previous round, winning participants were allowed to impose an arbitrary fine on the other losing out‐group member. As a result, participants imposed a larger fine on their out‐group member opponent in retaliation when they were expected by in‐group members to cooperate than when such cooperation was not expected. Furthermore, participants regarded a fine as intra‐group cooperation. Since a path analysis revealed a mediating effect of praise gain, but no mediating effect of exclusion avoidance, expected cooperation from in‐group members facilitated vicarious retribution because those involved in retribution sought praise from other in‐group members. These findings suggest that the intra‐group reputation dynamics of expected cooperation and praise gain escalate intergroup conflict.