Forgiveness in The Arab and Islamic Contexts

This essay explores the current and historical meaning of forgiveness in Arab and Islamic cultural and religious contexts. It also hopes to encourage further empirical research on this understudied topic in both religious and peacebuilding studies. In addition to the perceived meaning of forgiveness in an Arab Islamic context, this essay examines the links between forgiveness and reconciliation. Relying on religious sources including the Qur'an and Hadith, as well as certain events in Islamic history, the essay identifies various ways to conceptualize and explain the meaning of forgiveness. This theoretical and conceptual segment is followed by a section which explores current perceptions of forgiveness among Arab Muslim teachers in five different communities. The empirical data for this analysis is based on a larger comparative regional study that has been completed through surveys and structured interviews with educators from Lebanon, Jordan, Egypt, and Palestinians from the West Bank and Israel. Our study concluded that the teachers' perceptions of forgiveness were mainly derived from religious sources and identities and that Islamic religious discourse provided a solid foundation for framing the meaning of forgiveness.     

Confidence in judgments based on incomplete information: An investigation using both hypothetical and real gambles

This study assessed how confidence in judgments is affected by the need to make inferences about missing information. Subjects indicated their likelihood of taking each of a series of gambles based on both probability and payoff information or only one of these sources of information. They also rated their confidence in each likelihood judgment. Subjects in the Explicit Inference condition were asked to explicitly estimate the values of missing information before making their responses while subjects in the Implicit Inference condition were not. The manner in which probability information was framed was also manipulated. Experiment 1 employed hypothetical gambles and Experiment 2 employed gambles with real money. Expressed likelihood of taking gambles was higher when probability was phrased in terms of '% chance of winning' rather than '% chance of losing', but this difference was somewhat less with real gambles than with hypothetical gambles. Confidence ratings in each experiment were actually higher on incomplete information trials than on complete information trials in the Explicit Inference condition. Results were related to the general issue of confidence in judgments.     

Effectiveness of the GOFER course in decision making for high school students

The paper describes and evaluates the GOFER course in decision making for high school students (Mann, Harmoni and Power, 1988). The course was based on principles from the conflict theory of decision making (Janis and Mann, 1977) and was designed to provide adolescents with an understanding of factors that produce good and poor decision making as well as knowledge and practice of sound decision skills. Two evaluation studies were conducted to examine effectiveness of the course. Study 1 was conducted with young adolescents (12 year olds). It found a significant difference between students trained in the course and a control group on measures of self-esteem as a decision maker, self reported decision habits and knowledge of decision strategy. Study 2 was conducted with mid-adolescents (15 year olds). It, too, found a significant difference between students who took the course and a control group on measures of self esteem as a decision maker and self-reported decision habits. It is concluded that while the evaluation study fell short of an ideal test, the GOFER course met the criteria of improving student knowledge, raising confidence in decision making and changing self reported decision habits.     

Making peace in gestational conflicts

Mary Anne Warren's claim that there is room for only one person with full and equal rights inside a single human skin ([1], p. 63) calls attention to the vast range of moral conflict engendered by assigning full basic moral rights to fetuses. Thereby, it serves as a goad to thinking about conflicts between pregnant women and their fetuses in a way that emphasizes relationships rather than rights. I sketch out what a care orientation might suggest about resolving gestational conflicts. I also argue that the care orientation, with its commitment to the significance of the partial and the particular, cannot be absorbed within standard, impartialist moral theory.     

The utilization of genetic counselors within a newborn screening program

Genetic counselors have participated in the Michigan Newborn Screening Program on a contractual basis since 1988. Their role includes newborn screening education and training, newborn nursery site visits, and monitoring newborn screening in hospitals. Their impact has been to improve the quality of newborn screening services by reducing errors and increasing completion of data fields on newborn screening cards, improving hospital nursery cooperation and problem solving, and enhancing health department response to specific problems.     

TOWARD A NEW RELATION BETWEEN HUMANITY AND NATURE: RECONSTRUCTING T'IEN-JEN-HO-I

Abstract. The traditional Chinese idea of t'ien-jen-ho-i (Heaven and humanity in union) implies that humanity has to live in harmony with nature. As science and technology progress, however, the idea appears increasingly outmoded, and it becomes fashionable to talk about overcoming nature. Ironically, though, the further science reaches the more clearly are its limitations exposed. The exploitation of nature not only endangers many life forms on earth but threatens the very existence of the human species. I propose that a reconstruction of the traditional Chinese idea of T'ien-jen-ho-i will help us envisage a new and salutary relation between humanity and nature.     

The health needs of the majority versus the health needs of the individual: The reorganization of medical education in Colombia

The challenge of excellence in community health services has been taken up by medical educators in Colombia. Confronted with a nation where the primary indicators of disease mortality and morbidity (cardiovascular disease and infant mortality) were characteristic of First and Third World patterns, respectively, the Ministry of Health and La Asociacion Colombiana de Facultades de Medicina (ASCOFAME), representatives of institutions of medical education, have collaborated to conduct a needs assessment of the country's health needs and devised an implementation plan designed to better address the needs of the majority of that nation's people.As a model, the Colombian reorganization of medical education is an example which could be emulated by the U.S. where policy makers are struggling with troublesome questions of cost, equity and quality.     

Deep dyslexia in childhood?

Deep dyslexia is an acquired reading disorder in which semantic substitutions (e.g., city read as town) are made in reading single isolated words. In this paper, evidence for deep dyslexic-type errors is presented from the word-recognition responses of six children, aged 7 years and 0 month to 8 years and 9 months, with severe reading disorders. These semantic substitutions occur in the absence of phonological skills. Therefore, it appears that there exists a small subset of developmental dyslexics who at the beginning of acquisition of reading skills are able to engage in semantic processing, but who show severe impairment of phonological processing. The existence of these reading errors indicate that the use of a phonological code is not necessary to extract meaning from the printed word.     

Effects of simulated stuttering on listener recall

In an investigation of the effects of simulated stuttering on listener recall, a presentation was varied on two factors: degree of stuttering (mild or severe) and information value of stuttered words (low or high). A control presentation featuring non-stuttered speech also was prepared. Five groups of 16 subjects were randomly assigned to, and participated in, one of the five listening conditions. Then they completed a 20-item recall test. A one-way analysis of variance revealed sognificant differences among the five conditions. Two-way analysis of variance disclosed no main effects. However, a significant interaction showed that recall was lowest in the severe stuttering-high information condition. The results are discussed in terms of attention to critical information.