Leader–follower risk orientation incongruence,intellectual stimulation,and creativity: A configurational approach

Prior work suggests that follower and leader risk orientation is positively associated with follower creativity. We suggest that this view is oversimplified and propose that follower creativity can be stimulated when leader and follower have diverging risk orientations. We, therefore, apply a configurational approach to creativity, evaluating varying combinations of leader and follower risk orientation on follower creativity. Across two field studies, we demonstrate that (a) follower creativity increases as leaders’ and followers’ risk orientations become more discrepant (i.e., incongruent); (b) follower creativity is higher when leader–follower dyads are congruent at moderate levels of risk orientation compared to congruence at the extremes (i.e., low and high levels); (c) follower‐experienced intellectual stimulation mediates the relationship between leader–follower risk orientation incongruence and congruence and follower creativity; and (d) that leader authority openness moderates the indirect effect of leader–follower risk orientation incongruence on creativity via follower‐experienced intellectual stimulation. Theoretical and practical implications specific to creativity and leader–follower relationships are discussed.     

Identity,legitimacy, and chaste widows

I will sketch an evolutionary map of the four versions of Chineseness and explore the corresponding changes in the ideologies of the Chinese culture. A focal point is to diagram the shifting currents of moral realism vs. nihilism, cultural universalism vs. particularism and to explain how political legitimacy becomes entangled with personal identity and, as an example, how chaste widows can constitute a potent political rhetoric.     

Queer(ing) notions of Islamic authority: a methodological disposition in the work of Khaled Abou El Fadl

ABSTRACT

Queer approaches to Islam take a multitude of forms, and reflect queer lived experiences in a variety of ways. This article focuses on one particular form of queer approach to an aspect of the Islamic tradition, examining Khaled Abou El Fadl’s approach to the Shari’ah, focusing on his particular methodology of de-legitimization, re-presentation, and judgment according to the ethical standard of beauty. In doing so, its retrieval of internally queer aspects of the tradition come to light, including the focus on the nature of certainty within the Shari’ah as problematic, a strong emphasis on procedural non-finality, and the importance of the contextual nature of legal outcomes. Each of these aspects of the methodology have an impact on the lived experiences of Muslims within a community in which the law holds significant legal and social authority. In queering approaches to the Shari’ah, Abou El Fadl’s methodology simultaneously opens up space for a queering of contemporary norms of Muslim identity, society, and performance.     

Promoting spiritual well-being among Hindu children in South Asian,Southeast Asian and African Countries: Bala Vihars of Chinmaya Mission

The main objective of the study is to examine whether the Bala Vihars (BVs) of Chinmaya Mission promote spiritual well-being among Hindu children in different cultural contexts. Deploying a comparative survey design, 1194 BV participants aged 11–15 years, across 13 South Asian, African and Southeast Asian cities comprised the sample and an equal number comprised the comparison group. Email questionnaire was used comprising scales to assess spiritual well-being, operationalised through attitudes to Hinduism, hope, happiness, strengths and self-concept. Results of scale scores, ANOVA and logistic regression showed that BV participants scored better on all parameters and their scores, in turn, were contingent on attendance regularity, self-practice, and the consolidated learning of Hindu culture tenets, life skills and moral values. The BV programme significantly promotes child spiritual well-being, corroborating the extant literature on religiosity, spirituality and children’s spiritual well-being. The programme works best for children who attend regularly, undertake self-practice and claim to get a consolidated package of tenets of Hindu culture, life skills and moral values. This has implications for practitioners in designing consolidated forms of religious programmes for children’s spiritual well-being, giving a simultaneous emphasis on regularity of engagement and self-practice.     

Beyond Tebowing and superstitions: religious practices of 15-year-old competitive athletes

Research of religious practices in sport typically limits investigation to Christian prayer and/or “superstitions” among professional or collegiate athletes. This study moves in a different direction by examining the religious spiritual practices reported by 13 adolescent competitive athletes in individual interviews and focus groups. With a mix of religious backgrounds among the 15-year-old participants, this sample of males and females reported religious practices such as talking with dead ancestors and different forms of prayer and meditation. The paper categorises these and other practices according to Nancy Tatom Ammerman’s 2014 study, enabling a conceptualisation of how adolescent athletes use religious practices in everyday ways to enable confidence in their play. The study overall points to a significant religious element within competitive youth sports that challenges cynical assumptions about elite athletes' use of religion found in other studies.     

Cultivating spiritual intelligence in adolescence in a divisive religion education classroom: a bridge over troubled waters

Religion Education (RE) forms part of the curriculum of public schools in South Africa. The teachers are, however, not always certain how to deal with divisive religious plurality in multicultural classrooms. Our aim was therefore, to illustrate how the implementation of a spiritual intelligence (SQ) programme can in a constructive way encourage meaningful interaction among students in RE classrooms in secondary schools. Over a period of three months a programme to stimulate SQ was implemented by means of a qualitative case study with ten Grade 11 students of diverse religious convictions. This article reports on the impact of the programme in respect of self-awareness, as well as universal awareness and connectedness as key characteristics of SQ. The collection of the data included reflective activities, informal conversation interviews, focus group discussions, field-notes of observations, and a self-reflective journal. The findings indicate how the programme stimulated meaningful interaction and opportunities to deal with religious plurality in RE.     

Exploring the spiritual in the pedagogy of Friedrich Froebel

Friedrich Froebel (1782–1852) was the inventor of the kindergarten, and his emphasis on childcentredness and play influenced the progressive movement throughout the world. The concepts of unity and wholeness are highly visible in his writings. Religion is addressed in his work and that of his followers, but little attention has been paid to spirituality per se in Froebel’s thought. This paper explores the place of the spiritual in Froebel’s scheme and in some of what has been written about him. It notes his use of the concepts of the spirit and spirituality, and considers the relationship between his faith and the Christian religion. It discusses the ‘laws’ which Froebel enunciated: of Divine Unity, opposites and the connection of opposites; the principle of self-activity; and the process of ‘unfoldment’. These principles are observed in his teaching methods and resources, specifically in the Gifts and The Mother-Song Book of 1844. The paper concludes with a discussion of the implications for such concepts as the spirit of the child and spiritual education. The picture that emerges is of a child-centred education which honours the integrity of childhood. It is argued that such an education, fully embraced, is a spiritual education.     

The "God Module" and the Complexifying Brain

Recent reports of the discovery of a "God module" in the human brain derive from the fact that epileptic seizures in the left temporal lobe are associated with ecstatic feelings sometimes described as an experience of the presence of God. The brain area involved has been described as either (a) the seat of an innate human faculty for experiencing the divine or (b) the seat of religious delusions.
In fact, religious experience is extremely various and involves many parts of the brain, including some that are prehuman in their evolutionary history and some that are characteristically human. In the continuing integration of such experiences, spiritual formation takes place. Thus the entire human brain might be described as a "God module."
Such a process is only possible because of the brain's complexity. The human brain is the most complex entity for its size that we know of. As used here, complexity is a specialized term denoting the presence of a web of interlinked and significant connections—the more intricate the web, the more complex the entity. Complex systems develop only in a milieu that provides both lawfulness and freedom, and they tend to be self-organizing, becoming more complex and more effective as a result of both inward and outward experience. The evidence suggests that both personal growth and spiritual growth are processes of complexification of character, and of the brain itself. This thesis is tested in light of the work of William James and James W. Fowler.     

A role for ownership and authorship in the analysis of thought insertion

Philosophers are interested in the phenomenon of thought insertion because it challenges the common assumption that one can ascribe to oneself the thoughts that one can access first-personally. In the standard philosophical analysis of thought insertion, the subject owns the ‘inserted’ thought but lacks a sense of agency towards it. In this paper we want to provide an alternative analysis of the condition, according to which subjects typically lack both ownership and authorship of the ‘inserted’ thoughts. We argue that by appealing to a failure of ownership and authorship we can describe more accurately the phenomenology of thought insertion, and distinguish it from that of non-delusional beliefs that have not been deliberated about, and of other delusions of passivity. We can also start developing a more psychologically realistic account of the relation between intentionality, rationality and self knowledge in normal and abnormal cognition.

工作场所精神性的研究概况

作场所精神性是指个体在工作背景下的一种超越性体验,它是通过工作过程提升工作的意义与目的、培养与他人之间的联系感来丰富个体的内心生活体验,从而提升个体的心灵层次,实现个体的成长与进步。从工作场所精神性的概念形成、研究方法和研究热点等三个方面,对工作场所精神性的研究现状进行了介绍和评述。工作场所精神性在未来研究中主要包括：提出明确统一的定义和结构,运用新的研究范式注重对精神性作用机制的探讨等,并指出了在中国文化背景下开展工作场所精神性研究可能的方向