Queer Muslim love: a time for ijtihad

ABSTRACT

Across the globe, Muslim communities have developed, and are continuing to develop, a theology of compassion, non-judgmental attitudes, and support toward queer Muslims. This discourse uses ijtihadic analysis to support acceptance of queer Muslim love, because religion is a strong and deep social construct that acts as a moral compass where Muslim queers learn to feel “unacceptable”, “bad”, and “worthless” and under the mercy of the horrified gaze of mainstream, heteropatriarchy, which uses religious arguments to contest the rights enshrined in the South African constitution. It provides a case study as a pedagogical reflection to share intentions, process, and outcomes of sexual diversity workshops to support queer Muslim love to broadly raise critical consciousness about alternative sexual orientations and identities.     

Responses to visual,tactile and visual–tactile forward collision warnings while gaze on and off the road

The objective of the current driving simulator study (N = 20) was to assess brake reaction time (BRT) and subjective experiences of visual (V), tactile (T), and visual–tactile (VT) collision warnings when the drivers’ visual orientation was manipulated between four locations (i.e., road and three different mirror locations). V warning was a blinking light in a windscreen, T warning was implemented by a vibrating accelerator pedal, and VT warning was their synchronous combination. The results showed that all the warning stimuli were detected in 100% accuracy in all visual orientations, but T and VT warnings produced significantly faster BRTs when compared to V warning. It was found that BRT to V warning was the slowest while observing the furthermost side mirror. However, BRTs following T and VT warnings remained unaffected by the visual orientations. Both the objective BRT measurements and subjective evaluations indicated a superiority of T and VT warnings against a sole V warning, not only in general terms, but also separately for different visual orientations.     

Going to political extremes in response to boredom

Boredom makes people attempt to re‐establish a sense of meaningfulness. Political ideologies, and in particular the adherence to left‐ versus right‐wing beliefs, can serve as a source of meaning. Accordingly, we tested the hypothesis that boredom is associated with a stronger adherence to left‐ versus right‐wing beliefs, resulting in more extreme political orientations. Study 1 demonstrates that experimentally induced boredom leads to more extreme political orientations. Study 2 indicates that people who become easily bored with their environment adhere to more extreme ends of a political spectrum compared with their less easily bored counterparts. Finally, Study 3 reveals that the relatively extreme political orientations among those who are easily bored can be attributed to their enhanced search for meaning. Overall, our research suggests that extreme political orientations are, in part, a function of boredom's existential qualities.     

Who Is to Blame? Official Discourse and Ethnic Diversity Attitudes During the 2011 Riots in England

In 2011, the killing of a Black man by a police officer triggered violent riots across England. In a context where ethnic minorities are rarely openly blamed, we examined the lens through which the events were interpreted in the official discourses of the British Prime Minister. A thematic content analysis (Study 1) revealed that, without explicitly blaming ethnic minorities, the discourses built on antagonistic normative references opposing a virtuous majority to threatening minorities. Then, based on online survey data of self‐declared Londoners (N = 223) during the riots, we analyzed (Study 2) how agreement with the discourses related to individuals’ ethnocentrism and their understanding of the causes underlying the events. Results of regression analyses showed how agreement with the discourses related to blaming ethnic diversity for the riots and to higher ethnocentrism, especially among individuals least likely to discriminate against minorities (i.e., low in social dominance orientation). Agreement with the discourses was also linked to reduced blame of authorities. To conclude, we discuss the mobilization potential of political discourses on ingroup virtue and outgroup threat.     

A person-oriented approach to hand hygiene behaviour: Emotional empathy fosters hand hygiene practice

Objectives: Adopting a social-psychological approach, this research examines whether emotional empathy, an affective reaction regarding another’s well-being, fosters hand hygiene as this affects other’s health-related well-being extensively.

Design: Three studies tested this notion: (a) a cross-sectional study involving a sample of health care workers at a German hospital, (b) an experiment testing the causal effect of empathy on hand hygiene behaviour and (c) an 11-week prospective study testing whether an empathy induction affected disinfectant usage frequency in two different wards of a hospital.

Main outcome measures: Self-reported hand hygiene behaviour based on day reconstruction method was measured in Study 1, actual hand sanitation behaviour was observed in Study 2 and disinfectant usage frequency in two different hospital wards was assessed in Study 3.

Results: Study 1 reveals an association of empathy with hand hygiene cross-sectionally, Study 2 documents the causal effect of empathy on increased hand sanitation. Study 3 shows an empathy induction increases hand sanitiser usage in the hospital.

Conclusions: Increasing emotional empathy promotes hand hygiene behaviour, also in hospitals. Besides providing new impulses for the design of effective interventions, these findings bear theoretical significance as they document the explanatory power of empathy regarding a distal explanandum (hand hygiene).     

The Structure and Sources of Right‐wing Authoritarianism and Social Dominance Orientation

Right‐wing authoritarianism (RWA) and social dominance orientation (SDO) are widely used constructs in research on social and political attitudes. This study examined their hierarchical and correlative structure (across sexes, generations and rater perspectives), as well as how genetic and environmental factors may contribute to individual differences in them (using different rater perspectives and nuclear twin family data). We found a substantive common aspect (beyond shared artificial variance arising from socially desirable responding) underlying both RWA and SDO: aggression against subordinate groups. We discussed how this aspect could help to explain the commonly reported correlation between the two concepts in Western countries. Estimates of genetic and environmental components in RWA and SDO based on self‐reports were quite comparable with those based on peer reports. When controlling for error variance and taking assortative mating into account, individual differences in RWA were primarily due to genetic contributions including genotype–environment correlation, whereas variance in SDO was largely attributable to environmental sources shared and not shared by twins. The findings are discussed in terms of the utility of RWA and SDO as basic constructs to describe individual differences in social attitudes and with respect to the different patterns of genetic and environmental influences that underlie them. Copyright © 2016 European Association of Personality Psychology