Meaning Beyond Heroic Illusions? Transcendence in Everyday Life

Ernest Becker's theory of human evil is as devastating as it is incisive since he identifies the uniquely human capacity for transcendence as the source of evil. Anticipating our own death, we turn to elaborately constructed heroic illusions that give us meaning and the promise of immortality while treating those with different ideologies as opponents. This article summarizes Becker's interpretation of evil and discusses how transcendence is understood by contemporary thinkers such as Karl Rahner. It concludes by examining breakthroughs in personal relationships as transcendent experiences that are deeply meaningful but do not involve the construction of others as enemies.     

The Relative Importance of Self-Focused and Society-Focused Values in Explaining Political Attitudes in Europe

Personal values predict political attitudes. Previous research in the United States suggests that so-called “society-focused” personal values such as universalism or conservation do so more than “self-focused” values such as self-direction and power. This study seeks to test the relevance of this distinction in a different context with four political attitudes using the European Social Survey. Three mechanisms are suggested to explain effects of self-focused values on political attitudes. Although society-focused values were generally found to be more important in predicting political attitudes, self-focused values made a significant and often substantial contribution. On average, self-focused values were able to predict around half of the variance in political attitudes that society-focused values were. Power in particular played a role in predicting political attitudes, especially support for economic redistribution. Further analyses support the ideas that (1) even the most self-focused value (i.e., hedonism) can play a relevant role in predicting political attitudes, and (2) self-interest may play a role in explaining the effect of self-focused values on political attitudes. Together, these findings highlight that a priori excluding self-focused values from analyses of political attitudes—as studies have done in the past—may lead to important effects being overlooked.     

Students' defending and passive bystanding behaviours when witnessing school bullying in North Western Ethiopia: Roles of personal and situational factors

Guided by Thornberg et al.'s (2012) framework on motivation to intervene, the present study examines whether personal and situational factors are associated with defending and passive bystanding behaviours in school bullying. Self-reported survey data were collected from 612 students (aged 12–16 years) attending grades 7, 8, 9, and 10 in East Gojjam Administrative Zone, North Western Ethiopia. Hierarchical regression analysis revealed that the strongest, significant predictors of defending were self-efficacy for defending (β = .215, p = .000), affective empathy (β = .173, p = .000), students' experience as victim (β = .119, p = .002), personal sense of power (β = .119, p = .006), followed by moral disengagement (β = .118, p = .002), and age level (β = −.082, p = .036). All variables jointly explained 18.6% of the total variance in defending, F (12, 599) = 11.397, p < .00; with medium effect size (f² = 0.23). In contrast, the strongest predictors of passive bystanding were moral disengagement (β = .233, p = .000), perceived costs and benefits of defending (β = −.163, p = .000), self-efficacy (β = −.139, p = .003), students' experience as victim (β = .097, p = .014), followed by gender (β = −.080, p = .042). The model explained 16.7% of the total variance in passive bystanding, F (12, 599) = 10.043, p < .001; with medium effect size (f² = 0.20). The findings enrich our understanding of factors associated with defending and passive bystanding behaviours. The implications for intervention are discussed. Please refer to the Supplementary Material section to find this article's Community and Social Impact Statement.     

Forgiveness,its factors,and unforgivable acts in romantic relationships: A mixed-methods study

Using a mixed-methods approach, this study investigates forgiveness, the factors of forgiveness, and unforgivable acts, and analyzes relational and gender differences in participants' qualitative answers. Open-ended questions were answered by 649 participants from Slovakia (532 dating, 117 married; 517 women, 132 men). Responses were analyzed qualitatively using the Consensual Qualitative Research-Modified method, then transformed into quantitative data in order to statistically compare the groups. The results showed that dating individuals tended to see forgiveness as working on the relationship, whereas married individuals viewed forgiveness as an emotional process. Married individuals were more likely to report that shared commitments helped them to forgive. Dating partners tended to look at the situational context. Men were more likely to report that forgiveness was key to the relationship. When forgiving their partner, men focused on internal factors, whereas women needed an apology and acts of love. Infidelity was the most common unforgivable transgression. Therapists may benefit from a more nuanced understanding of forgiveness in dating and married individuals.     

Impact of On-Site Personal Experience of Violent Death on Posttraumatic Stress Disorder of Bereaved Japanese Family Members in Forensic Autopsy Cases

The present study investigated the influence of direct on-site experience of violent death on the symptoms involved in posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) of bereaved Japanese family members (n = 367) in forensic autopsy cases, using a questionnaire survey. Factor analyses of three core symptoms of PTSD confirmed the factor structure. In general linear modeling, the major effect of direct on-site experience of violent death on PTSD score was significant, while manner of death alone did not have such an effect. These findings suggest that direct on-site experience of violent death is essential in the clinical assessment of PTSD-related symptoms of bereaved family members.     

Self–Other Relations in Biodiversity Conservation in the Community: Representational Processes and Adjustment to New Actions

This research explores the simultaneous role of two Self–Other relations in the elaboration of representations at the micro‐ and ontogenetic levels, assuming that it can result in acceptance and/or resistance to new laws. Drawing on the Theory of Social Representations, it concretely looks at how individuals elaborate new representations relevant for biodiversity conservation in the context of their relations with their local community (an interactional Other) and with the legal/reified sphere (an institutional Other). This is explored in two studies in Portuguese Natura 2000 sites where a conservation project calls residents to protect an at‐risk species. Study 1 shows that (i) agreement with the institutional Other (the laws) and meta‐representations of the interactional Other (the community) as approving of conservation independently help explain (at the ontogenetic level) internalisation of conservation goals and willingness to act; (ii) the same meta‐representations operating at the micro‐genetic level attenuate the negative relation between ambivalence and willingness to act. Study 2 shows that a meta‐representation of the interactional Other as showing no clear position regarding conservation increases ambivalence. Findings demonstrate the necessarily social nature of representational processes and the importance of considering them at more than one level for understanding responses to new policy/legal proposals. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

All new kids on the block? Impaired holistic processing of personally familiar faces in a kindergarten teacher with acquired prosopagnosia

Acquired prosopagnosia is primarily defined as a defect in recognizing familiar faces. Nonetheless, for practical and methodological reasons, studies of such rare patients typically use pictures of unfamiliar faces. Here, we report an extensive investigation (17 behavioural tasks grouped in nine experiments) with a homogenous set of personally familiar faces in patient PS (Rossion et al., 2003 Rossion, B., Caldara, R., Seghier, M., Schuller, A.-M., Lazeyras, F., &; Mayer, E. (2003). A network of occipito-temporal face-sensitive areas besides the right middle fusiform gyrus is necessary for normal face processing. Brain, 126, 2381–2395. doi: 10.1093/brain/awg241[Crossref], [PubMed], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]. A network of occipito-temporal face-sensitive areas besides the right middle fusiform gyrus is necessary for normal face processing.), a well-documented case of acquired prosopagnosia with intact object recognition. PS’s recognition of the face pictures of 3–4-year-old children of her kindergarten is severely impaired—both in terms of accuracy and speed of recognition—and differs qualitatively from her colleagues’ performance. Relative to these typical individuals, PS relies more on external features, colour and local details of faces. She is also specifically impaired at processing the eye region in two-alternative face matching tasks, as well as in a familiar face recognition task performed both with pre-defined isolated parts and with randomly placed apertures revealing selective parts (“Bubbles”, >20.000 trials) of the personally familiar faces. These observations indicate that the same impairment observed previously with unfamiliar faces for PS and other cases of acquired prosopagnosia is associated with a deficient long-term representation of the eye region. Various manipulations that differentially affect the processing of the eye region suggest that this impairment is a consequence of the inability to represent the multiple parts of the eye region, and of the whole familiar face, as a single unit. This impairment in holistic processing is further evidenced here across different paradigms with composite faces, wholes and parts, and configurally distorted faces, mirroring and strengthening previous observations made with unfamiliar faces in PS and other cases of acquired prosopagnosia. Altogether, these observations suggest that prosopagnosia following brain damage affects unfamiliar and familiar face processing in a qualitatively similar way.     

A multiple case study of teachers referring to their own religious beliefs in mathematics teaching

There is a need to integrate religious education and spiritual education across school curriculum. This paper reports one of the few empirical studies on bridging the intention-practice gap in classrooms. Six school teachers deliberately designed and implemented mathematics lessons which referred to their own religious beliefs in teaching. It unfolds teachers’ intention to enact their religious beliefs in mathematics classroom teaching. Different modes were identified. Implications to religious education in schools are offered.     

大学生学校认同对责任感的影响:自尊的中介作用

为探讨大学生学校认同对责任感的影响及其机制,本研究采用问卷调查与实验相结合的方法,通过系列研究揭示二者之间的相关与因果关系,并检验了集体自尊和个体自尊的中介效应。结果发现:(1)大学生学校认同对其责任感具有显著的正向影响;(2)集体自尊在大学生学校认同对责任感的影响中发挥完全中介作用,而个体自尊无显著中介效应。这表明大学生学校认同通过形成集体自尊而提升其责任感。