Generational Conversion? The Role of Religiosity in the Politics of Evangelicals

The political environment for evangelical Protestants has changed substantially since the Christian Right reached its apex, as a more issue and ideologically diffuse political environment has emerged. The present study tests two different theoretical perspectives on whether these contextual changes may have altered Millennial evangelicals’ political perspectives vis‐à‐vis those of previous generations of evangelicals. On the one hand, theoretical perspectives related to differential political socialization processes across generations would lead to expectations of generational change among evangelicals. On the other hand, theoretical perspectives related to social identity theory would suggest far less change across generations. Using Pew's 2007 U.S. Religious Landscape Survey, we test these expectations by comparing the relationships between religiosity and political attitudes across three generations of evangelicals. Ordered probit and logistic regression models estimate the impact of religiosity on various political attitudes. These models reveal that Millennial evangelical religiosity continues to be strongly related to Republican Party identification and opposition toward abortion, which is largely consistent with the social identity perspective. Generational change is most evident in a variety of nonsocial issues in which religiosity is associated with less conservatism among Millennials. Additional analysis using the 2012 Religion and Politics Survey with a smaller sample of Millennial evangelicals confirms these results.     

Comparative analysis of the risk-handling procedures for gene technology applications in medical and plant science

In this paper we analyse how the risks associated with research on transgenic plants are regulated in Sweden. The paper outlines the way in which pilot projects in the plant sciences are overseen in Sweden, and discusses the international and national background to the current regulatory system. The historical, and hitherto unexplored, reasons for the evolution of current administrative and legislative procedures in plant science are of particular interest. Specifically, we discuss similarities and differences in the regulation of medicine and plant science, and we examine the tendency towards dichotomizing risk — focusing on social/ethical risks in medicine and biological risks in plant science. The context of this article is the Synpraxia research project, an inter-disciplinary program combining expertise in sciences and the humanities.     

The Moral Judgment of Juvenile Delinquents: A Meta-Analysis

A meta-analysis of 50 studies was conducted to investigate whether juvenile delinquents use lower levels of moral judgment than their nondelinquent age-mates and, if so, what factors may influence or moderate the developmental delay. The results show a lower stage of moral judgment for juvenile delinquents (d=.76). Effect sizes were large for comparisons involving male offenders, late adolescents, delinquents with low intelligence, and incarcerated delinquents. The largest effect sizes were found for period of incarceration and comparisons involving juvenile delinquents with psychopathic disorder. Production instead of recognition measures, dilemma-free assessment methods, and non-blind scoring procedures yielded relatively large effect sizes, whereas effect sizes were medium for comparisons involving delinquents with average intelligence, non-incarcerated delinquents, female offenders, as well as early and middle adolescents. Psychopathic disorder and institutionalization were identified as unique moderators of the link between moral judgment and juvenile delinquency. It is concluded that developmentally delayed moral judgment is strongly associated with juvenile delinquency, even after controlling for socioeconomic status, gender, age and intelligence.This article stems from a paper presented at the meeting of the Association for Moral Education, July 2006, Fribourg, Switzerland.     

Homelessness in the United States: Assessing Changes in Prevalence and Public Opinion, 1993–2001

A national survey was administered in 1993-1994 (N = 360) and repeated in 2001 (N = 435) to assess the prevalence of homelessness as well as attitudes, opinions and knowledge regarding homelessness. No significant changes in prevalence were found, despite a strong US economy during most of the 7-8 year period. Respondents in 2001 had less stereotyped views of homeless people and were more supportive of services, but came to see homelessness as a less serious problem that was less often due to economic factors. This "mixed" set of findings may reflect both beliefs on the benefits of a good economy and an increased awareness of the complexity of homelessness. Across the surveys, younger, female, liberal, and less wealthy respondents demonstrated more sympathetic attitudes towards homeless people.     

Advocacy,Political Participation,and Citizenship: Lutheran Contributions to Public Theology1

Abstract : Martin Luther never developed a political theory, but his theology does inform the way Christians live in society, making it both public and political. Luther's “two kingdom theory” often has been misinterpreted to justify passivity and obedience toward civil authorities. Under closer examination, however, his theology applies to the everyday practices of politics, economics, and religious affairs. In the context of nation‐building, a Lutheran theology fosters citizenship not only as individual rights and responsibilities, but as active participation in civil society.     

Theme Articles: Mujerismo and The Two Kin‐doms: Distinction and Reconciliation

Abstract : The theological ethics underlining mujeristas' theological praxis and Luther's Two Kingdoms doctrine may seem to be contradictory to some. Mujerista theology calls for active engagement in the public sphere. Despite its utilization to the contrary, Luther's Two Kingdoms doctrine calls for that same active engagement of the Christian in civic matters. As a Lutheran Latina, I posit that the theological ethics of mujeristas and Luther's Two Kingdoms are distinct but reconcilable.     

No need to fake it: reproduction of the Asch experiment without confederates

In the present experiment, we replicated Asch's seminal study on social conformity without using confederates. We adapted a presentation trick in order to present two different stimuli secretly to groups of participants to create minorities and majorities without utilizing confederates. One hundred and four Japanese undergraduates (40 men and 64 women) carried out Asch-equivalent tasks in same-sex groups of four. In each group, we adapted the fMORI Technique to present the tasks such that one person (minority participant) observed different stimuli than the other three people (majority participants). The same nine stimulus sets that Asch had used were carefully reproduced as PowerPoint slides and projected onto a half-transparent screen. As for the critical tasks, the top part of the standard lines appeared in either green or magenta so that two groups of participants would see them differently when they wore two types of polarizing sunglasses that filtered either green or magenta to make the lines appear longer or shorter. A post-experimental questionnaire confirmed that no participant among either the minority or majority viewers noticed the presentation trick. The results showed that, in line with Asch's basic findings, the minority women participants conformed to the majority. However, our study produced two different results: While minority women conformed, minority men did not. Contrary to Asch's findings, the frequency of conformity of minority participants was almost the same regardless of whether the majority answered unanimously or not.     

The Historical Effect of Habermas in the Chinese Context: A Case Study of the Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere

The main purpose of this essay is not to give a full-scale and systematic exploration of the historical process concerning the acceptance of Habermas’ works in the Chinese-spoken world but to examine the historical effect of Habermas in the Chinese-spoken context and try to find a proper way to establish a good relationship between Habermas and the Chinese-spoken world by discussing the introduction, study, and application of Habermas’ most famous work, The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere, by Chinese scholars in recent years. Translated from Xiandai zhexue, 2005:1     

A New Methodology for Reporting the Status of Community Health Improvement in the United States

Objective To assure that Healthy Communities are achieved, a tracking methodology is proposed using four health improvement categories. Methods Counties are classified as having met or not met nine HP2010 mortality targets and as improving or not improving, creating four categories of community health improvement – static, progressing, exemplary, and maintaining. Results Exemplary counties make up 1.7%32.7% of counties, counties have both improved and met the HP2010 target during the period. Across all indicators, a large proportion remains of counties that have neither met the HP2010 target nor improved (33.572.8%). Conclusions Understanding why, how, and in what ways communities move from static to maintaining categories is necessary to guiding every local public health system to community health improvement.