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Monday, February 9, 2015

Islamic education and violence: Not inextricably linked

Islamic Jihad has become a term which conjures scenes of terror and acts of violent destruction in the name of holy war. Is this the true meaning of Jihad? A new article published in Ethics and Education explores how Islamic education and Jihad could and should be a pathway to peace.

In 1998, Bin Laden incited Muslims to a military Jihad against Western secularism and 'blasphemous' democracy. In Islam, Allah is believed to be the sole giver and taker of life, the one creator of society in the world. Why then would devout believers take matters into their own hands?

Jihad was not always synonymous with war but with 'striving in Allah's cause to improve one's morality'. It was about 'peaceful resistance and perseverance against oppression and tyranny'.According to the Qur'an, Jihad is about encouraging Muslims to defend against their enemies but importantly it forbids hostility to anyone but those oppressing others. So, do fanatical Jihadists misunderstand Islamic teachings? Or are their actions and deliberate misinterpretations of the Qur'an based on other (covert) agendas?

Muslim reformists have, in contrast, embarked on peaceful demonstrations to achieve political change and democratic progression, notably during the Arab spring. In this instance jihad has been interpreted and enacted as fostering democracy and tolerance for greater societal good -- indeed, their actions bear testimony to Islamic education supporting liberty, security and peace.

Such contradictory stances, one indoctrinated to act violently in the name of faith, the other struggling to explore and improve personal spiritual and moral development, can surely not be attributed to education alone! On the one hand we had highly educated 9/11 bombers, but on the other hand, a lack of education and opportunity might perpetuate a predisposition towards violence. A hapless suicide bomber cannot continue the prescribed journey of Islamic spiritual refinement after a violent death, an act seemingly in conflict with Islamic teachings. And yet, there are numerous other sub-texts at play, such as issues of oppression, which inadvertently cultivate forms of extremism -- by no extent limited to Islamic jihad.

Similarly, while misinformed and misconstrued forms of militaristic jihad have yielded untold heartache, this is not supported by the majority of Muslims -- as is evident not only in this article, but propagated by a host of Muslim reformists.

The author concludes: 'Muslims need an Islamic education for non-violence that can engender reconciliation, democratic engagement and recognition of the other, rather than hatred, repression and discrimination'.

This conclusion, however, needs to be understood within a particular dialogue with its context. And to large extent, this context has been defined by the media. Peaceful co-existence is possible if reports of peaceful co-existence, reconciliation and democratic engagement take precedence over reports of violence and hatred.

Story Source:

The above story is based on materials provided by Taylor & Francis. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.

Talking to kids about death amidst the fantasy of Halloween

During the weeks leading up to Halloween, kids dressed in white sheets as ghosts, silly-looking goblins and dancing zombies can make death seem comical or cartoonish. However, this pretend, temporal idea of death can be confusing for children, especially a child who is trying to understand the loss of a loved one.

"It's often difficult for children to grasp abstract concepts and the finality of death can be hard for a preschool and middle-school child to understand, especially around Halloween when death may be perceived as a means for 'fun' or just a trick," said Theodote K. Pontikes, MD, pediatric psychiatrist at Loyola University Health System and assistant professor in the departments of Psychiatry and Behavioral Neurosciences and Pediatrics at Loyola University Chicago Stritch School of Medicine.

According to Pontikes, Halloween isn't the only way our culture sends mixed messages to our kids. For instance, video games characters typically have more lives after defeat or self-destruction. Immortality is often a characteristic of superheroes in cartoons and movies as well.

"Children go through developmental stages in which their understanding of death evolves. To a preschool child, for example, death can seemed fantasized, impersonal and reversible. This can be confusing at a young age when trying to understand why a deceased loved one won't be visiting anymore," Pontikes said.

"Children typically truly understand that death is irreversible, with a personal dimension, sometime between the middle-school years and adolescence. During this time, children and teens often also reflect on their family's faith tradition for guidance regarding a framework or philosophy for the meaning of life and rituals for honoring and memorializing the deceased," she said.

When talking to kids about death and grief, Pontikes suggests trying to approach them at their level of comprehension, as children develop at different rates and have unique ways of expressing themselves. For preschoolers or young school-age children, explanations need to be brief, simple and concrete, with familiar examples such as a flower that no longer blooms or a pet that no longer breathes or eats or runs.

"Children may not immediately respond or react and often need to repeat their questions, as they learn, absorb and process information and their emotional responses. It's critical for children to know that death is not a taboo subject that is avoided; but one that is 'talk-about-able.' It's okay for parents to let children know that they may not know an answer to a question or that there are many different viewpoints held by people regarding cultural and religious beliefs, such as those pertaining to an afterlife."

She also said it's important for parents and caregivers to be open and honest about their own grief.

"Children are very perceptive. They know if an adult is keeping something from them and it can make them feel unsafe. They may even feel they have done something wrong or that this pain is their fault. Balance is so important when it comes to talking to kids about grief. We have to create an environment where they feel free to ask questions and express their fears, but also assess what they can safely comprehend and process," Pontikes said.

She also stresses the importance of children understanding that not all illnesses lead to death, so a child is not scared if a parent gets a cold or a friend is out of school with a stomach bug.

Also, parents should watch for signs that a child might be distressed. If so it's important to talk to a pediatrician about a referral to a pediatric psychiatry expert for an evaluation, especially if a child's normal routine has not resumed six months after the death of a significant attachment figure. These include:

• Regression in activities of daily living (e.g, bedwetting)

• Difficulty separating from parents

• Trouble sleeping (e.g., nightmares)

• Guilt

• Anger

• Irritability

• Withdrawing

• Depression

• Physical aggression

"Death is a natural part of the life cycle and a topic that shouldn't be avoided. It's extremely important that children and adolescents feel safe and that they can ask questions. Parents need to make sure they are communicating with their children about death in a way the child can understand. Opportunities from daily circumstances and surroundings can and should be taken to begin a meaningful dialogue," Pontikes said.

Cite This Page:

Loyola University Health System. "Talking to kids about death amidst the fantasy of Halloween." ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 7 October 2014. .Loyola University Health System. (2014, October 7). Talking to kids about death amidst the fantasy of Halloween. ScienceDaily. Retrieved February 6, 2015 from www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/10/141007152535.htmLoyola University Health System. "Talking to kids about death amidst the fantasy of Halloween." ScienceDaily. www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/10/141007152535.htm (accessed February 6, 2015).

Companies' religious affiliation can buffer negative reactions

While companies like Hobby Lobby and Chick-fil-A are at the forefront of debate over the religious rights of employers, a new study by a Grand Valley State University researcher shows religious affiliation can safeguard companies against negative reactions to store policies. The findings were published in the Journal of Services Marketing.

The research, led by Kelly Cowart, assistant professor of marketing at Grand Valley State University, examines the effect of a firm's religious association on customer perceptions of the firm, especially when a service failure occurs. A service failure is defined as limited hours of operation or a temporary store closing.

Cowart said the current findings indicate that religious affiliations may buffer against some of the negative fallout that ensues in the wake of a service failure, as consumers do not penalize such firms as heavily as those without an affiliation. "More importantly, the findings suggest that a religious affiliation can garner favor even when the religion is not the dominant religion in society," she said.

Two experimental studies were conducted in which participants assumed the role of a customer visiting a restaurant for the first time. In study one, the customer either ate a meal at the restaurant or could not eat a meal due to the restaurant's closing for an annual holy day. In study two, the restaurant is closed for weekly religious worship rather than an annual holy day.

"Results from both studies revealed that customers are more likely to forgive firms when service failures are associated with religion, regardless of attitudes toward the religious group," said Cowart. "The results were similar no matter what religion was used in the scenarios: Christianity, Judaism or Islam."

Creating friendships between African-American and Caucasian couples can reduce prejudice

?Recent research findings from Wayne State University show that the physical presence of romantic partners in intergroup friendships – friendships with different racial and ethnic groups, religious groups, or sexual orientations – positively influences interactions with people who are perceived to be different from themselves.

The study, “Creating positive out-group attitudes through intergroup couple friendships and implications for compassionate love,” currently available online in the Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, found that couples that interacted with couples of another race showed a greater positive attitude toward the other group than to same-race couple interactions.

Research participants spent time answering and asking questions that increased the level of self-disclosure over time. The conversations began with lower-level information and then escalated to more personal information.

“Our research found that there were more positive attitudes towards answering questions when there were intergroup couples interacting versus same-group couples or individuals,” said Keith Welker, Ph.D., a Wayne State graduate and lead author of the study. “Our findings suggest that interacting in an intergroup context with the presence of your romantic partner is something that can improve your attitude toward other groups significantly rather than just interacting alone. This is because romantic partners can alleviate threats, help improve conversations and create something you have in common with other couples.”

Journal Reference:

K. M. Welker, R. B. Slatcher, L. Baker, A. Aron. Creating positive out-group attitudes through intergroup couple friendships and implications for compassionate love. Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, 2014; DOI: 10.1177/0265407514522369

Hormones affect voting behavior, researchers find

Researchers from the University of Nebraska at Omaha (UNO), the University of Nebraska-Lincoln (UNL) and Rice University have released a study that shows hormone levels can affect voter turnout.

As witnessed by recent voter turnout in primary elections, participation in U.S. national elections is low, relative to other western democracies. In fact, voter turnout in biennial national elections ranges includes only 40 to 60 percent of eligible voters.

The study, published June 22 in Physiology and Behavior, reports that while participation in electoral politics is affected by a host of social and demographic variables, there are also biological factors that may play a role, as well. Specifically, the paper points to low levels of the stress hormone cortisol as a strong predictor of actual voting behavior, determined via voting records maintained by the Secretary of State.

"Politics and political participation is an inherently stressful activity," explained the paper's lead author, Jeff French, Varner Professor of Psychology and Biology and director of UNO's neuroscience program. "It would logically follow that those individuals with low thresholds for stress might avoid engaging in that activity and our study confirmed that hypothesis."

Additional authors on the paper are Adam Guck and Andrew K. Birnie from UNO's Department of Psychology; Kevin B. Smith and John R. Hibbing from UNL's Department of Political Science; and John R. Alford from the Department of Political Science at Rice University.

The study is part of a larger body of research exploring connections between biology and political orientation, led by Smith and Hibbing. Previous studies have involved twins, eye-tracking equipment and skin conductance in their efforts to identify physical and genetic links to political beliefs.

"It's one more piece of solid evidence that there are biological markers for political attitudes and behavior," said Smith. "It's long been known that cortisol levels are associated with your willingness to interact socially -- that's something fairly well established in the research literature. The big contribution here is that nobody really looked at politics and voting behaviors before."

"This research shows that cortisol is related to a willingness to participate in politics," he said.

To reach their conclusion, researchers collected the saliva of over 100 participants who identified themselves as highly conservative, highly liberal or disinterested in politics altogether and analyzed the levels of cortisol found.

Cortisol was measured in saliva collected from the participants before and during activities designed to raise and lower stress. These data were then compared against the participants' earlier responses regarding involvement in political activities (voting and nonvoting) and religious participation.

"Not only did the study show, expectedly, that high-stress activities led to higher levels of cortisol production, but that political participation was significantly correlated with low baseline levels of cortisol," French explained. "Participation in another group-oriented activity, specifically religious participation, was not as strongly associated with cortisol levels. Involvement in nonvoting political activities, such as volunteering for a campaign, financial political contributions, or correspondence with elected officials, was not predicted by levels of stress hormones."

According to the study, the only other factor that was predictive of voting behavior was age; older adults were likely to have voted more often than younger adults. Research from other groups has also pointed to education, income, and race as important predictors of voting behavior.

In explaining why elevated cortisol could be linked with lower rates of participation in elections, French cited previous experiments in which high levels of afternoon cortisol are linked to major depressive disorder, social withdrawal, separation anxiety and enhanced memory for fearful stimuli.

"High afternoon cortisol is reflective of a variety of social, cognitive, and emotional processes, and may also influence a trait as complex as voting behavior," French suggested.

"The key takeaway from this research, I believe, is that while social scientists have spent decades trying to predict voting behavior based on demographic information, there is much to be learned from looking at biological differences as well," he said. "Many factors influence the decision to participate in the most important political activity in our democracy, and our study demonstrates that stress physiology is an important biological factor in this decision. Our experiment helps to more fully explain why some people engage in electoral politics and others do not."

Journal Reference:

Jeffrey A. French, Kevin B. Smith, John R. Alford, Adam Guck, Andrew K. Birnie, John R. Hibbing. Cortisol and politics: Variance in voting behavior is predicted by baseline cortisol levels. Physiology & Behavior, 2014; 133: 61 DOI: 10.1016/j.physbeh.2014.05.004

China's old-growth forests vanishing despite government policies

China's anti-logging, conservation and ecotourism policies are accelerating the loss of old-growth forests in one of the world's most ecologically fragile places, according to studies led by a Dartmouth College scientist.

The findings shed new light on the complex interactions between China's development and conservation policies and their impact on the most diverse temperate forests in the world, in "Shangri-La" in northwest Yunnan Province. Shangri-La, until recently an isolated Himalayan hinterland, is now the epicenter of China's struggle to wed sustainable economic development with environmental protection. The province is known for its scenic, ecological and ethnic diversity, but it also is one of the poorest regions in China, populated by indigenous subsistence cultures that rely on forests for their livelihoods. The province was largely undisturbed until the 1950s when state logging companies started clear-cutting old-growth forests to fuel China's national economic boom. But catastrophic flooding along the Yangtze River in the 1990s prompted the Chinese government to implement multiple forest protection policies, including nature reserves, a commercial logging ban, reforestation programs and ecotourism, as a sustainable development strategy. The logging ban prohibits commercial timber harvesting, but allows logging by local people on a quota basis.

In a new study in the journal Biological Conservation, researchers used satellite imagery and statistical analysis to evaluate three overlapping forest conservation strategies -- protected areas, a commercial logging ban and Tibetan sacred forests -- in northwest Yunnan Province. The results show that protected-area status conserved old-growth forests, while the logging ban increased total forest cover but accelerated old-growth logging in sacred forests. The sacred forests have effectively protected old-growth trees from clear-cutting for centuries despite major upheavals in the region's history, including the logging era and the Cultural Revolution. But recent official environmental protection policies have displaced these ancient community-managed protections. In a related 2012 study in the journal Remote Sensing of Environment, researchers used three decades of satellite imagery to measure rates and patterns of old-growth deforestation in response to the environmental protection and sustainable development policies. The results, surprisingly, showed that old-growth logging accelerated: old-growth forests covered 26 percent of the area in 1990 but only 20 percent in 2009. And, paradoxically, old-growth forest loss occurred most rapidly where ecotourism was most prominent. "Our results show that the negative impacts of ecotourism-based economic development on the environment outweighed conservation efforts," says lead author Jodi Brandt, a postdoctoral researcher at Dartmouth and formerly at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and University of Michigan.

Taken together, the two studies suggest the burgeoning tourism industry has increased demand for old-growth timber, and that official conservation policies displaced logging to sacred areas. "Tourism development continues to expand into remote regions in northwest Yunnan and the negative impacts observed near Shangri-La City in the last decade may soon follow," Brandt says. As for displacing deforestation pressure to sacred areas: "China's policy currently favors strong environmental protection in this region, but it's hard to say whether the government protections will still be in place in 10, 20, or 50 years. The fact that potentially temporary government policies are displacing centuries-old community-based forms of environmental management has worrisome consequences. Our research highlights a need for increased understanding of interactions among government policies and local forms of land management. One unique aspect of these studies is the emphasis on using satellite imagery to measure change in different forest types. The analysis discriminated old-growth forests from pine and scrub forests, and when all forest types were lumped together, results indicated that total forest cover increased. However, new forests were primarily scrub and secondary forests, which typically regenerate after old-growth logging but have much lower biodiversity value. The results highlight that even though most satellite-based studies consider total forest cover as the sole indicator of success, lumping all forests together can lead to misleading conclusions about the effectiveness of biodiversity conservation strategy."

In a related 2013 study in the journal Biological Conservation, Brandt and her colleagues reported that northwest Yunnan's old-growth sacred forests are critical for forest birds in the Himalayas, where more threatened bird species live than anywhere else in the world. The province is a major migratory flyway for many bird species, including some that live nowhere else, but its bird population is one of the least understood on the planet and little is known about the role of sacred forests in bird and biodiversity conservation. Several ethnic minority groups maintain hundreds of sacred forests, which range from a few acres to thousands of square miles, as part of their religion. The researchers observed 81 bird species across 62 plots within and outside six Tibetan sacred forests. They found that sacred forests support a richer collection of bird species and more total birds than the surrounding areas. The plots with the largest-diameter trees and native bamboo groves have the highest bird diversity. More birds used the sacred forests and their edges during 2010, a severe drought year in Yunnan, suggesting sacred forests serve as refuges during extreme weather years. "Our results strongly indicate that protecting old-growth forest ecosystems is important for Himalayan forest birds and that sacred forests protect a variety of habitat niches and increase bird diversity," says Brandt. The results also suggested the remaining patches of native old-growth sacred forests could be incorporated into official conservation strategies and form the backbone of an expanded natural protected area system. Environmentalists have suggested such a strategy in China and other nations where sacred natural areas function as de facto protected natural areas. China's national protected area system has expanded greatly in recent years, but the areas are typically remote, at higher elevations and ineffectively managed, while sacred forests are closer to centers of human land use, at lower-elevations and managed effectively at the community level. But Brandt's 2014 follow-up study with Tibetan villagers in northwest Yunnan suggest such a strategy wouldn't work because they value the sacred forests primarily for religious reasons rather than conservation.

Suicide resilience, vulnerability among African-American adults focus of new research

Religious beliefs and practices may reduce thoughts of suicide among African-American adults in stressful life events induced by racial discrimination, according to a new research study conducted at the University of Houston (UH).

"African-Americans experience an inordinate amount of psychological strain through racial discrimination, leading to depression, hopelessness and other high risk factors for suicide, but demonstrate significantly lower rates of suicide relative to European-Americans," said Rheeda Walker, associate professor and director of the Culture, Risk and Resilience Lab at UH.

Walker is the principal investigator of a new research study, "Perceived Racism and Suicide Ideation: Mediating Role of Depression but Moderating Role of Religiosity among African American Adults," published in the journal Suicide and Life-Threatening Behavior. The goal of the study is to assess suicide ideation (thinking about, considering or planning for suicide), depressive symptoms, intrinsic/extrinsic religiosity (religious orientation) and perceived racism in a community sample of 236 African-American men and women.

Walker notes suicide does exist for African-Americans, but it's rarely noticed and understudied. She cites suicide as one of the leading causes of death among African-Americans and that approximately, 1,900 African-American adults and youth die by suicide each year.

"There is a belief that if one creates psychological science and knowledge, such knowledge ought to apply universally to everyone. That is simply not the case," said Walker. "We need to spend more time finding out what depression means for African-Americans and across ethnic groups. What does suicide look like for African Americans? Are there self-destructive behaviors that are suicidal, but not considered as suicide?"

The findings from Walker's research provide evidence that perceived racism may play a role in suicide vulnerability. The study's contributions are important in the context of providing evidence that despite the harmful effects of racism, extrinsic religiosity (external motivation for being religious, such as meeting people, community conformity, cultural heritage, etc.) buffered these effects. People in the study who reported higher levels of more socially oriented, extrinsic religiosity did not report suicide ideation when experiencing symptoms of depression.

"To our knowledge, this is the first study to examine the moderating capacity of religiosity in the context of perceived discrimination and depression symptomatology so that we can understand the vulnerability and the resilience operating in tandem. Although discrimination can have adverse emotional consequences, the findings suggest that the 'use' of religion perhaps to connect with others or to meet some other need can be emotionally helpful among individuals who experience racism," said Walker.

In this context, Walker hopes religion might be used to obtain social cohesion and relief from emotional distress that might be experienced by others in similar circumstances. Previous research observed that people who experience high levels of stress experience relief in supportive religious settings.

Women will benefit from the Affordable Care Act's contraceptive coverage

Women could benefit greatly from the Affordable Care Act's mandate for contraceptive coverage, according to Penn State College of Medicine researchers.

The Affordable Care Act requires private insurance plans -- except those grandfathered or exempted due to employers' religious beliefs -- to provide women with access to all FDA-approved contraceptive methods without cost-sharing. This first-dollar coverage "has the potential to dramatically shift contraceptive use patterns, to reduce the U.S. unintended pregnancy rate ... and to improve the health of women and families," wrote Carol S. Weisman, Distinguished Professor of Public Health Sciences and Obstetrics and Gynecology, and Cynthia H. Chuang, associate professor of medicine and public health sciences.

"First-dollar coverage" means that women will not pay anything out-of-pocket for their office visits or contraceptive methods -- no copays and no deductibles -- because these costs will be covered by health insurance.

Challenges beyond employer objections that could slow privately insured women's full use of contraceptive benefits are the focus of a recent commentary co-authored by Weisman and Chuang that is now online online, and also in the September/October print edition of Women's Health Issues. The researchers also offer suggestions for "making the most of first-dollar contraceptive coverage."

In particular, evidence suggests more women will choose highly effective long-acting reversible contraceptives (LARCs), such as intrauterine devices (IUDs), that previously would have been too expensive.

However, cost is not the only barrier women face when considering their contraceptive options. Many women may be uncertain about what their plans cover or unaware of the attributes of various methods now within their financial reach, according to Weisman and Chuang. Their primary care providers may not be trained in the provision of LARCs, and insertion of IUDs and implants may require referrals to obstetrician-gynecologists.

To address these challenges, the researchers recommend clear communication to the public about the Affordable Care Act contraceptive coverage mandate and to private-plan enrollees about their plans' contraceptive coverage. They also recommend training primary-care providers and creating seamless referral arrangements between these providers and those who can provide LARCs.

In addition, Weisman and Chuang call for the "design, assessment and dissemination of woman-centered information and decision tools to help women make optimal contraceptive choices in the context of their own life circumstances and preferences." Their commentary offers examples of current initiatives in Massachusetts and Pennsylvania to develop and disseminate such decision tools.

"All of the publicity about the Supreme Court's Hobby Lobby decision may have confused women who have first-dollar coverage through their employer's health insurance or through the new exchanges," said Weisman. "Women need accurate information about their coverage and about their contraceptive options so that they can obtain whatever contraceptive method best meets their needs. Avoiding unintended pregnancy is a key component of women's health that we should not lose sight of."

Story Source:

The above story is based on materials provided by Penn State. The original article was written by Victoria M. Indivero. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.

Indian scientists significantly more religious than UK scientists

Indian scientists are significantly more religious than United Kingdom scientists, according to the first cross-national study of religion and spirituality among scientists.

The U.K. and India results from Religion Among Scientists in International Context (RASIC) study were presented at the Policies and Perspectives: Implications From the Religion Among Scientists in International Context Study conference held today in London. Rice's Religion and Public Life Program and Baker Institute for Public Policy sponsored the conference. The U.K. results were also presented at the Uses and Abuses of Biology conference Sept. 22 at Cambridge University's Faraday Institute in Cambridge, England.

The surveys and in-depth interviews with scientists revealed that while 65 percent of U.K. scientists identify as nonreligious, only 6 percent of Indian scientists identify as nonreligious. In addition, while only 12 percent of scientists in the U.K. attend religious services on a regular basis -- once a month or more -- 32 percent of scientists in India do.

Elaine Howard Ecklund, Rice's Autrey Professor of Sociology and the study's principal investigator, said the U.K. and India data are being released simultaneously because of the history between the U.K. and India. She noted that their differences are quite interesting to compare.

"India and the U.K. are at the same time deeply intertwined historically while deeply different religiously," Ecklund said. "There is a vastly different character of religion among scientists in the U.K. than in India -- potentially overturning the view that scientists are universal carriers of secularization."

Despite the number of U.K. scientists identifying themselves as nonreligious, 49 percent of U.K. survey respondents acknowledged that there are basic truths in many religions. In addition, 11 percent of U.K. survey respondents said they do believe in God without any doubt, and another 8 percent said they believe in a higher power of some kind.

Ecklund noted that although the U.K. is known for its secularism, scientists in particular are significantly more likely to identify as not belonging to a religion than members of the general population.

"According to available data, only 50 percent of the general U.K. population responded that they did not belong to a religion, compared with 65 percent of U.K. scientists in the survey," Ecklund said. "In addition, 47 percent of the U.K. population report never attending religious services compared with 68 percent of scientists."

According to the India survey, 73 percent of scientists responded that there are basic truths in many religions, 27 percent said they believe in God and 38 percent expressed belief in a higher power of some kind. However, while only 4 percent of the general Indian population said they never attend religious services, 19 percent of Indian scientists said they never attend.

"Despite the high level of religiosity evident among Indian scientists when it comes to religious affiliation, we can see here that when we look at religious practices, Indian scientists are significantly more likely than the Indian general population to never participate in a religious service or ritual, even at home," Ecklund said.

Although there appear to be striking differences in the religious views of U.K. and Indian scientists, less than half of both groups (38 percent of U.K. scientists and 18 percent of Indian scientists) perceived conflict between religion and science.

"When we interviewed Indian scientists in their offices and laboratories, many quickly made it clear that there is no reason for religion and science to be in conflict; for some Indian scientists, religious beliefs actually lead to a deeper sense of doing justice through their work as scientists," Ecklund said. "And even many U.K. scientists who are themselves not personally religious still do not think there needs to be a conflict between religion and science."

The U.K. survey included 1,581 scientists, representing a 50 percent response rate. The India survey included 1,763 scientists from 159 universities and/or research institutions. Both surveys also utilized population data from the World Values Survey to make comparisons with the general public. In addition, the researchers conducted nearly 200 in-depth interviews with U.K. and Indian scientists, many of these in person.

The complete study will include a survey of 22,000 biologists and physicists at different points in their careers at top universities and research institutes in the U.S., U.K., Turkey, Italy, France, India, Hong Kong and Taiwan -- nations that have very different approaches to the relationship between religious and state institutions, different levels of religiosity and different levels of scientific infrastructure. Respondents were randomly selected from a sampling frame of nearly 50,000 scientists and compiled by undergraduate and graduate students at Rice University through an innovative sampling process. The study will also include qualitative interviews with 700 scientists. The entire RASIC study will be completed by the end of 2015.

Story Source:

The above story is based on materials provided by Rice University. The original article was written by Amy Hodges. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.

Breaking with tradition: 'Personal touch' is key to cultural preservation

"Memetics," or the study of memes, is a very popular discipline among cultural researchers now, particularly as it concerns new media like viral videos. But no one seems to know what a meme really is.

Originally coined by evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins, the "meme" transfers cultural information much the way that genes inherit biological properties. Pharrell Williams' feel-good hit "Happy" (2013), one of the top-selling singles of all time, is a recent example of a wildly popular meme. Originally tucked away in the soundtrack of the film Despicable Me 2, the song spread across the viral Net through thousands of similarly-formatted cover videos, ultimately enjoying global sales of over ten million copies -- a true display of memetic cultural transference.

However, unlike genes, well-defined biological entities with clear structural units, memes have long been slapped with the vague label "cultural replicators." Now a Tel Aviv University study scheduled for publication in the journal Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews provides insight into the building blocks of cultural replication and the different ways they're used to preserve traditional rituals and practices.

Adding the personal touch to tradition

According to the research by Prof. David Eilam of the Department of Zoology at TAU's Faculty of Life Sciences, together with Dr. Michal Fux, Dr. Joel Mort, and Dr. Tom Lawson of Queens University Belfast, idiosyncratic acts, once considered merely incidental to the memes -- the common actions that form the basis of traditions -- are actually essential for their survival in a culture. Conducted alongside a few fixed memes, individualized gestures ensured the very survival of a ritual or practice by providing simplicity, flexibility, and creative license.

For the purpose of the study, Prof. Eilam and his team observed and analyzed a wedding dance called the "Umsindo," performed by the Zulu tribe in South Africa. In this dance, only one act -- the high kick, the standard meme of the dance -- was performed by all 19 participants. But all the dancers engaged in additional idiosyncratic movements resembling free-style dance before and after executing the high kick. The researchers found these idiosyncratic movements to be indispensable to the easy transference and preservation of this long-practiced cultural ritual.

Keeping it simple

"There are a limited number of common acts that lead to the continuation of any given tradition," said Prof. Eilam. "On the one hand this is surprising, but on the other it makes sense. You can't teach or transfer very complex things. In the Umsindo dance, there is just one common gesture. The rest you are free to improvise."

The same process characterized the application of phylacteries (a head and arm garment replete with leather bands and a small box) performed by observant Jewish men at the TAU synagogue, the researchers observed. In the application ritual, only 11 out of 67 acts were recognized as common to all the gestures of the application and could be regarded as the "memes" by virtue of their commonality and high frequency of performance. Again, the vast majority of the gestures during the ritual were found to be idiosyncratic, providing flexibility and creative license during a rigorous religious ritual that has been practiced throughout centuries.

"The common acts of the memes are always accompanied by idiosyncratic acts that establish identity and preserve behavioral flexibility," said Prof. Eilam. "In other words, idiosyncratic acts, or 'behavioral variability,' appear to be an essential component that participates in the evolution of behavioral patterns, similar to genetic variability in biology."

Prof. Eilam is continuing his research on memes, exploring how these fixed actions emerge and why they are specifically selected in the evolution of cultural and other behavioral practices.

Impact of Facebook unfriending analyzed by researchers

Two studies from the University of Colorado Denver are shedding new light on the most common type of `friend' to be unfriended on Facebook and their emotional responses to it.

The studies, published earlier this year, show that the most likely person to be unfriended is a high school acquaintance.

"The most common reason for unfriending someone from high school is that the person posted polarizing comments often about religion or politics," said Christopher Sibona, a doctoral student in the Computer Science and Information Systems program at the CU Denver Business School. "The other big reason for unfriending was frequent, uninteresting posts."

Sibona's first study examined `context collapse and unfriending behaviors' on Facebook and his second looked at `the emotional response to being unfriended.'

Both studies were based on a survey of 1,077 people conducted on Twitter.

The first study found that the top five kinds of people respondents unfriended were:

High School friendsOtherFriend of a friendWork friendsCommon interest friend

"We found that people often unfriend co-workers for their actions in the real world rather than anything they post on Facebook," Sibona said.

One reason he believes high school friends are top targets for unfriending is that their political and religious beliefs may not have been as strong when they were younger. And if those beliefs have grown more strident over time, it becomes easier to offend others.

"Your high school friends may not know your current political or religious beliefs and you may be quite vocal about them," Sibona said. "And one thing about social media is that online disagreements escalate much more quickly."

The second study looked at the emotional impact of being unfriended.

Sibona found a range of emotions connected to unfriending, from being bothered to being amused.

The most common responses to being unfriended were:

I was surprisedIt bothered meI was amusedI felt sad

"The strongest predictor is how close you were at the peak of your friendship when the unfriending happened," said Sibona, who has studied the real world consequences of Facebook unfriending since 2010. "You may be more bothered and saddened if your best friend unfriends you."

The study found four factors that predicted someone's emotional response to being unfriended. Two factors predicted that a user would be negatively affected -- if the unfriended person was once a close friend to the one who unfriended them and how closely the person monitored their own friend's list.

Two other factors predicted that a user would be less negatively affected -- if difficulties were discussed between the friends before the unfriending and if the person unfriended talked about it with others after the unfriending.

The research showed that unfriending happens more often to friends who were once close than to those who are acquaintances.

"Despite the preponderance of weak ties throughout online social networks, these findings help to place unfriending within the greater context of relationship dissolution," the study said.

Sibona said that the 'one size fits all' method of ending digital relationships is unique but with real world consequences that warrant additional research.

"If you have a lot of friends on Facebook, the cost of maintaining those friendships is pretty low," he said. "So if you make a conscious effort to push a button to get rid of someone, that can hurt."

The two studies were published in the 2014 47th Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences.

Story Source:

The above story is based on materials provided by University of Colorado Denver. The original article was written by David Kelly. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.

Beliefs about soul, afterlife that we acquire as children stick with us

What we believed as children about the soul and the afterlife shapes what we believe as adults -- regardless of what we say we believe now, according to a new Rutgers study.

"My starting point was, assuming that people have these automatic -- that is, implicit or ingrained -- beliefs about the soul and afterlife, how can we measure those implicit beliefs?," said Stephanie Anglin, a doctoral student in psychology in Rutgers' School of Arts and Sciences.

Her research, "On the Nature of Implicit Soul Beliefs: When the Past Weighs More Than the Present," appears in latest issue of the British Journal of Social Psychology.

Anglin asked 348 undergraduate psychology students about their beliefs concerning the soul and afterlife when they were 10 years old, and now. (The mean age of the students was just over 18.) Their answers gave her the students' explicit beliefs -- that is, what the students said they believed now, and what they remembered believing when they were 10.

Anglin found that her subjects' implicit beliefs about the soul and the afterlife were close to what they remembered as their childhood beliefs. But those implicit beliefs were often very different from their explicit beliefs -- what they said they believed now.

She complared implicit belief by religious affiliation, including believers and non-believers, and found no difference between them. "That suggests that implicit beliefs are equally strong among religious and non-religious people," she said.

The result did not surprise Anglin. She was aware of an experiment reported Journal of Personality and Social Psychology in 2009 in which researchers asked people to sign a contract selling their souls to the experimenter for $2. "Almost nobody signed, even though the researchers told them it wasn't actually a contract and would be shredded right away," she said.

Anglin used a well-known statistical tool, the Implicit Association Test, to gauge subjects' implicit beliefs about the soul and afterlife. In that test, each subject sees two concept words paired on the top of his or her computer screen -- in this case, "soul" paired either with "real" or "fake" to gauge his or her beliefs about the soul; "soul" paired either with "eternal" or "death" to address beliefs about the afterlife. A series of words is then flashed on the screen, and the subject must indicate by pressing a key whether each word fits with the two words on top.

"For example, if you had 'soul' and 'fake' on your screen, words like 'false' or 'artificial' would fit into that category, but words like 'existing' or 'true' would not," Anglin said.

Anglin concedes that there are limitations to her research, but suggests those limitations provide avenues for future research. She examined her subjects' implicit and explicit beliefs only about the soul and afterlife, and not about the relationship of those beliefs with beliefs about social or political issues. And she had to rely on her subjects' memories of what they believed when they were children.

"It would be really useful to have a longitudinal study examining the same ideas," Anglin said. "That is, study a group of people over time, from childhood through adulthood, and examine their beliefs about the soul and afterlife as they develop."

Story Source:

The above story is based on materials provided by Rutgers University. The original article was written by Ken Branson. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.

Researchers urge psychologists to see institutional betrayal

Clinical psychologists are being urged by two University of Oregon researchers to recognize the experiences of institutional betrayal so they can better treat their patients and respond in ways that help avoid or repair damaged trust when it occurs in their own institutions.

The call to action for clinicians as well as researchers appears in a paper in the September issue of the American Psychologist, the leading journal of the American Psychological Association.

In their paper, UO doctoral student Carly P. Smith and psychology professor Jennifer J. Freyd draw from their own studies and diverse writings and research to provide a framework to help recognize patterns of institutional betrayal. The term, the authors wrote, aims to capture "the individual experiences of violations of trust and dependency perpetrated against any member of an institution in a way that does not necessarily arise from an individual's less-privileged identity."

While their paper focuses on sexual assaults on college campuses, in the military and in religious institutions, the authors say that such betrayal is a wide-ranging phenomenon. Throughout the paper, they discuss the case of a college freshman in the Midwest whose questionably handled allegations against a major university's football player eventually contributed to her suicide.

"I think what struck me most in our examination of the literature was that people are starting to turn over this idea in their minds in all these different fields," Smith said. "They are starting to notice that when we see abuse or other trauma occurring, it might behoove us to broaden our focus beyond the individual level."

They note that institutional betrayal is a dimensional phenomenon, with acts of omission and commission as well as instances of betrayal that may vary on how clearly systemic they are at the outset. Institutional characteristics that the authors say often precede such betrayal include:

Membership qualifications with inflexible requirements where "conformity is valued and deviance quickly corrected as a means of self-policing among members." Often, a member making an accusation faces reprisal because of the institutional value placed on membership.Prestige given to top leaders results in a power differential. In this case, allegations that are made by a member against a leader often are met by gatekeepers whose roles are designed to protect top-level authority.Priorities that result in "damage control" efforts designed to protect the overall reputation of the institution. Examples include the abuse scandal at Pennsylvania State University, the movement of clergy to other locations in the face of allegations and hiding incidents of incest within family units.Institutional denial in which members who allege abuse are marginalized by the institution as being bad apples whose personal behaviors should be the issue.

Smith and Freyd, in the paper, offer recommendations to institutions for reducing the likelihood of betrayal. Recognizing such patterns is also important for clinicians who work with people who have been sexually abused, Smith said. She and Freyd suggest the use of the Institutional Betrayal Questionnaire they developed for their research. The questionnaire -- initially envisioned for use amid a rising number of sexual assaults being reported by women in the military -- contains key terminology that might help both clients and clinicians discuss abuse.

"Clinicians can take this knowledge and apply it directly into their practice," Smith said. "Just having the language can help them work with clients who may be grappling with a feeling of having been mistreated by the institution rather than helped and protected by it. In trauma work, language and developing a coherent narrative improves understanding of events that, at face value, are disorienting. It can help make sense of how events and the aftermath unfolded. This can help clinicians work with clients to make sense of their experience so that they can move forward with their lives."

It is important, Smith added, that clinicians also are aware of their own roles within institutions or in private practice. "It is important that clinicians be aware of the potential to act in a way that contributes to institutional betrayal," she said. "They can also contribute to healing and repairing the damaged trust that arises from institutional betrayal. We think this can have a ripple effect of healing for both the individual and the relationship with an institution."

Virginity pledges for men can lead to sexual confusion, even after the wedding day

Bragging of sexual conquests, suggestive jokes and innuendo, and sexual one-upmanship can all be a part of demonstrating one's manhood, especially for young men eager to exert their masculinity.

But how does masculinity manifest itself among young men who have pledged sexual abstinence before marriage? How do they handle sexual temptation, and what sorts of challenges crop up once they're married?

"Sexual purity and pledging abstinence are most commonly thought of as feminine, something girls and young women promise before marriage," said Sarah Diefendorf, a doctoral candidate in sociology at the University of Washington. "But I wanted to look at this from the men's point of view."

Studying a group of 15 young evangelical Christian men, Diefendorf found that support groups and open discussions about sex with trusted companions were key in helping the men during their pre-marital years. But once married, she found these men encountered trouble. Instructed by the church to keep problems "in the dark" after marriage, the men reported feeling like they couldn't discuss sex with their friends and that they didn't know how to comfortably broach the subject with their wives. The newly wedded men also expressed surprise that sexual temptations continued to taunt them.

Diefendorf will present her findings at the 109th Annual Meeting of the American Sociological Association.

At the start of her study, in 2008, the men were in their late teens and early 20s and part of a support group for young men who had pledged to remain virgins until marriage. The group was affiliated with a nondenominational evangelical megachurch in the southwest United States that had about 14,000 attendees at Sunday services. Over the course of a year, Diefendorf attended their meetings, and conducted one-on-one interviews and focus-group meetings with the men.

The men talked about sex as both "sacred" -- a gift from God meant for the marriage bed -- and "beastly" if it occurs outside of marriage.

"To maintain this gift from God, they believe they must refrain from sex before marriage," Diefendorf said.

The support group is one way for the young men to explore their sexual urges, she said. Many of them opened up to struggles with pornography and masturbation, which some considered "destructive" and a threat to their commitment to abstinence.

"People think that evangelical support groups are just about suppressing men's natural urges, but really they are caring, supportive, and safe spaces that allow men to have a remarkably open and frank discussion about sexual desire," Diefendorf said.

Besides the support group, the men sought out accountability partners to help control their behavior. One of them, for instance, had an accountability partner who would text message him each night, "Are you behaving?" Some of them used software to track which websites they visited, and shared the results with the partner.

A few years later, in 2011 and 2012, Diefendorf followed up with the men. Fourteen of them were married and she wanted to find out how the men's views of sex and masculinity had changed since marriage.

During a focus-group meeting in one of their homes, it soon became clear that as taboo as sexual activity was before marriage, it was now taboo to talk about sex as it was seen as disrespecting their wives.

"After marriage, the church culture assumes that couples become each other's support, regardless of the issue at hand," Diefendorf said. "There's little support in figuring out sexuality in married life, and these men don't know how to talk to their wives about it."

As one of the men put it: "For me to come home from work and say, 'Hey, did you like it last time?' I mean that would be -- that would be such a weird question for me to ask."

The newlyweds also revealed that they continue to think of sex in terms of control, and how the so-called beastly elements of sex -- temptations by pornography and extramarital affairs -- do not disappear with the transition to married life.

"Before you get married the biggest thing you struggle with, usually, is premarital sex," one of the men told Diefendorf. "But once you are married, you can't be tempted by that anymore, so you get attacked by completely different things. Essentially Satan has to find a new angle to attack on."

They wished for more guidance from the church, and someone in the group said he'd cheer if his pastor decided to talk more about sex.

"While the whole point of these support groups is to honor sex in marriage, these men have gotten so used to thinking about sex as something negative that they bring those concerns with them to the marriage bed," Diefendorf said. "Once they're married, these men struggle to manage those concerns in the absence of the supportive community they once benefited from."

She hopes that her study leads to more positive discussions of sex and how it is healthy, especially within the context of abstinence-only sex education. "There's an obsession with virginity in this country," Diefendorf said. "And we forget to have informative, successful conversations on sex."

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American Sociological Association (ASA). "Virginity pledges for men can lead to sexual confusion, even after the wedding day." ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 17 August 2014. .American Sociological Association (ASA). (2014, August 17). Virginity pledges for men can lead to sexual confusion, even after the wedding day. ScienceDaily. Retrieved February 7, 2015 from www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/08/140817215854.htmAmerican Sociological Association (ASA). "Virginity pledges for men can lead to sexual confusion, even after the wedding day." ScienceDaily. www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/08/140817215854.htm (accessed February 7, 2015).

Playing outside could make kids more spiritual

Children who spend significant time outdoors could have a stronger sense of self-fulfillment and purpose than those who don't, according to new Michigan State University research linking children's experiences in nature with how they define spirituality.

In the study, published recently in the Journal of the Study of Religion, Nature and Culture, children who played outside five to 10 hours per week said they felt a spiritual connection with the earth, and felt their role is to protect it.

"These values are incredibly important to human development and well-being," said Gretel Van Wieren, assistant professor of religious studies. "We were surprised by the results. Before we did the study, we asked, 'Is it just a myth that children have this deep connection with nature?' But we found it to be true in pretty profound ways."

For example, the children in her study expressed feelings of peacefulness and some believed that a higher power had created the natural world around them. They also reported feeling awestruck and humbled by nature's power, such as storms, while also feeling happy and a sense of belonging in the world.

The study also measured children's aesthetic values, finding that those who engage in free play outside on a regular basis have a deep appreciation for beauty (i.e., balance, symmetry and color), order and wonder (i.e., curiosity, imagination and creativity). For example: lush green bushes, pattern-like blue spots in water and fascination with bees' nests.

Van Wieren and co-researcher Stephen Kellert, from Yale University, used a mix of research methods, including in-depth interviews, drawings, diaries and observation, as well as conversations with parents. Seven of the 10 children in the study -- who were 7 to 8 years old -- were from families with a Christian background.

The researchers also found parents of the children who expressed the highest affinity toward nature and the strongest spirituality spent significant time outdoors during their childhoods. And many of the parents believed such experiences shaped their adult lives and spirituality.

So what is it about nature?

It offers a diverse display of colors, sights and sounds; uncertainty; multisensory qualities; and above all, aliveness, Van Wieren said. Nature is usually in a state of flux, which fosters problem-solving opportunities that build self-confidence.

But we could be in trouble if kids continue their technology habits, she said.

"This is the first generation that's significantly plugged in to a different extent and so what does this mean?" Van Wieren said. "Modern life has created a distance between humans and nature that now we're realizing isn't good in a whole host of ways. So it's a scary question: How will this affect our children and how are we going to respond?"

American liberals and conservatives think as if from different cultures

Political conservatives in the United States are somewhat like East Asians in the way they think, categorize and perceive. Liberals in the U.S. could be categorized as extreme Americans in thought, categorization and perception. That is the gist of a new University of Virginia cultural psychology study, published recently in Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin.

Additionally, the study indicates that thought styles -- whether analytical or holistic -- can be changed through training, enough so to temporarily change political thought and the way a person might vote.

"We found in our study that liberals and conservatives think as if they were from completely different cultures -- almost as different as East and West," said study leader Thomas Talhelm, a U.Va. doctoral candidate in cultural psychology. "Liberals and conservatives categorize and perceive things differently, just as East Asians and Westerners look differently at the world."

According to Talhelm, political conservatives in the United States, generally, and East Asians, particularly, are intuitive or "holistic" thinkers, while Westerners, generally, and American liberals, in particular, are more analytical thinkers.

The so-called "culture war," he said, is an accurate if dramatic way to state that there are clear cultural differences in the thought processes of liberals and conservatives.

"On psychological tests, Westerners tend to view scenes, explain behavior and categorize objects analytically," Talhelm said. "But the vast majority of people around the world -- about 85 percent -- more often think intuitively -- what psychologists call holistic thought, and we found that's how conservative Americans tend to think."

Holistic thought more often uses intention and the perception of whole objects or situations, rather than breaking them down to their parts -- such as having a general feeling about a situation involving intuition or tact.

Analytic thinking styles tend to look at the parts of a situation, and how they work together toward the whole. This involves "slicing up the world and analyzing objects individually, divorced from context," Talhelm said.

Studies show that analytical thinkers predominate in Western, educated, industrialized, rich and democratic societies (termed "WEIRD" societies in 2010 by a team of cultural psychologists at the University of British Columbia). But they make up only about 15 percent of the world's population.

So in a WEIRD society, such as the United States, analytically thinking liberals are "extreme Americans," Talhelm said, in the sense that they are particularly disinclined to think in the style of a vast majority of the rest of the world, including their holistic-thinking conservative countrymen.

There is value in both ways of thinking, Talhelm said. Intuitive thinking likely is the "default" style most people are born with, while analytical thinking generally must be learned, usually through training, such as in Western-style school systems. Psychologists test thought styles by giving study participants a short battery of tests to determine if they are holistic or analytic thinkers.

One such test asks participants to choose two of three items to categorize together, such as a mitten, a scarf, and a hand. Analytic thinkers usually match the scarf and mitten because they belong to the same abstract category -- items of winter clothing. Holistic thinkers usually match the mitten and hand because the hand wears a mitten. When Talhelm and his colleagues matched thought styles with political leanings of participants, they found that the liberals tended to be analytic thinkers and the conservatives holistic thinkers.

They further found that political thought was somewhat malleable. They discovered that if they trained holistic thinkers to think analytically, for example, to match scarf with mitten, they would subsequently start viewing the world more liberally (though not on economic policy). Likewise, liberals, if trained to think holistically, would come to form more conservative opinions.

"The change in thought style, we found, can be enough to change people's opinion on social issues like welfare or criminal sentencing," Talhelm said. "The switch was actually large enough that it would have changed the outcome if it had been a vote."

He noted that liberals in the West tend to live in urban or suburban areas and often have fairly weak social and community ties, move more often and are less traditionally religious. They are more individualistic than conservatives and very unlike most people in Eastern cultures. Conservatives, on the other hand, tend to be more connected to their communities and may live in the same areas throughout their lives, maintaining strong social and familial bonds and commitments, and are more traditionally religious. This puts them more in line with the holistic-thinking majority of the world. "This study shows that the two sides in the 'culture war,' conservatives and liberals, really approach the world as if they came from two very different cultures," Talhelm said.

His study participants were primarily university students and adults who participated online.

Story Source:

The above story is based on materials provided by University of Virginia. The original article was written by Fariss Samarrai. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.

Community religious beliefs influence whether wives work outside home, study finds

Married women who live in communities in which a higher proportion of the population belongs to conservative religious traditions -- such as evangelical or Mormon -- are more likely to choose not to work outside the home, even if the women are not members of those faith groups, according to a Baylor University study.

The study -- "Work-Family Conflict: The Effects of Religious Context on Married Women's Participation in the Labor Force" -- appears in the journal Religions in a special issue, "Religion, Spirituality, and Family Life."

While previous research has shown individual women's religious beliefs affect career decisions, this study argues that the religious context of a geographic area also influences women's solutions to work-family conflict.

Women today are faced with increasing demands from family and work leading to more work-family conflict. This combined with communal family expectations can cause many women to decrease the amount they work or exit the labor force altogether. Views of the "ideal family" in terms of family roles and responsibilities are influenced by community norms -- including religion, wrote researcher Jenna Griebel Rogers, a doctoral candidate in the department of sociology in Baylor's College of Arts & Sciences.

"Communities come to have a feeling all their own, and that sense of what makes one community different than another comes from the collective beliefs, values and expectations of all members of that community," said co-researcher Aaron B. Franzen, Ph.D., a former Baylor sociology researcher in Baylor's College of Arts & Sciences and assistant professor of sociology at Hope College.

"On some level, this will influence people within the community even if they have not personally 'bought into' a belief," he said. "Since religious beliefs often have something to say about family life, we wanted to see if this had a communal effect. As some religious traditions, such as evangelicals and Mormons, have more traditional views of the mother's role, we thought communities with a greater concentration of those beliefs would be tied to whether women worked outside the home."

For their analysis, researchers used data from the U.S. Census Bureau's American Community Survey for the years 2006-2010. The annual ACS compiles statistics about the country's social, economic and housing characteristics. Researchers also used data from InfoGroup's 2009 Religion Reports, available through The Association of Religion Data Archives, limiting their study to married women ages 18 to 65 and identifying women who were working, temporarily laid off and actively looking for work.

Researchers' analysis showed that:

• Communities with a larger proportion of mainline Protestants had a greater number of married women in the workforce.

• Communities with larger proportions of evangelical, Mormon or Jewish individuals had fewer women in the labor force.

• There was no significant relationship between the Catholic proportion of a community and the proportion of working women.

Story Source:

The above story is based on materials provided by Baylor University. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.

Many religious people view science favorably, but reject certain scientific theories

A new study finds that many U.S. adults -- roughly one in five -- are deeply religious, know a lot about science, and support many practical uses of science and technology in everyday life, but reject scientific explanations of creation and evolution.

"We were surprised to find that many people who are knowledgeable about science and appreciative of its practical uses reject certain well-established scientific theories," said Timothy L. O'Brien, an assistant professor of sociology at the University of Evansville and the lead author of the study, which appears in the February issue of the American Sociological Review.

"This finding is particularly interesting because these people who view both science and religion favorably -- people who hold what we call a post-secular perspective -- have relatively high levels of education and income, and many social scientists assume that high levels of education and income, as well as positive views of science are incompatible with religiosity."

But, O'Brien said the study calls that "common assumption" into question. "We find that many highly educated, well-informed, religious individuals accept scientific theories about topics such as geology, radioactivity, planetary motion, genetics, and probability while rejecting mainstream scientific accounts of evolution and the big bang," he said.

Titled, "Traditional, Modern, and Post-Secular Perspectives on Science and Religion in the United States," the study relies on nationally representative data on U.S. adults from the 2006, 2008, and 2010 waves of the General Social Survey. The study considers people who self-identified as Protestant, Catholic, Jewish, and followers of other faiths, as well as individuals who did not identify with a religious group.

As part of their analysis, O'Brien and his co-author Shiri Noy, an assistant professor of sociology at the University of Wyoming, determined that U.S. adults hold one of three perspectives based on their knowledge and attitudes about science and religion. Twenty-one percent hold a post-secular perspective, which values both science and religion, but which rejects science in favor of religion when it comes to topics such as creation and evolution. Forty-three percent hold a traditional perspective, which favors religion over science, and 36 percent hold a modern perspective, which favors science over religion.

"These three worldviews are held across religious groups, political parties, and social classes," according to O'Brien, who said social scientists have typically focused on studying people's perspectives on science or views on religion separately rather than looking at them simultaneously.

"Ours is the first study of the U.S. public that examines perspectives on science and religion in tandem," he said. "In doing so, our study uncovers a previously unidentified group of well-informed people who are appreciative of science and technology's social uses, but who are deeply religious and who reject certain scientific theories in favor of religious ones."

Among these post-seculars, more than 90 percent agree with contemporary scientific theories about geology, radioactivity, and planetary motion, but only 6 percent believe that the universe began with a huge explosion. Even fewer -- 3 percent of post-seculars -- agree that humans evolved from earlier animals.

In addition, 48 percent of post-seculars believe that the Bible is the literal word of God, compared to 31 percent of all U.S.adults, 46 percent of traditionals, and 3 percent of moderns. Post-seculars also report the greatest strength of religious affiliation as compared to traditionals and moderns.

"Our findings indicate that post-seculars are the most religious," O'Brien said.

In terms of the study's implications, the research "shows that differences in people's views of science and religion do not necessarily reflect a lack of knowledge or understanding," said O'Brien, who emphasized that "post-seculars are scientifically literate" yet still reject scientific explanations of the origins of human life and the universe.

"This suggests that bridging gaps between different groups of people may have less to do with reducing knowledge deficits among them and more to do with increasing empathy for and awareness of different lifestyles and cultural preferences," O'Brien said.

The National Science Foundation funded the study.

Journal Reference:

T. L. O'Brien, S. Noy. Traditional, Modern, and Post-Secular Perspectives on Science and Religion in the United States. American Sociological Review, 2015; 80 (1): 92 DOI: 10.1177/0003122414558919

Favored by God in warfare? How WWI sowed seeds for future international conflicts

World War I -- the "war to end all wars" -- in fact sowed seeds for future international conflicts in a way that has been largely overlooked: through religion, says a Baylor University historian and author.

As the 100th anniversary of the war's beginning approaches, Philip Jenkins, Ph.D., Distinguished Professor of History at Baylor, says that attitudes prevalent then have influenced how global powers see each other today, often viewing themselves as favored by God.

During World War I, which began on July 28, 1914, Germany saw itself as a religious force on a "messianic mission," while Russia saw itself not just as "a" Christian state, but as "the" Christian state, Jenkins said in a recent interview with Interfaith Voices, a public radio religion news magazine. Jenkins is the author of "The Great and Holy War: How World War I Became a Religious Crusade."

Those seeing the war as a religious crusade were "not just elite thinkers or a few crazy bishops and pastors . . . Religion dominated propaganda messages and the way people thought about the war, wrote about the war, made films about the war," Jenkins said. "Religion was part of the air they breathed . . . The enemy was an evil satanic foe."

He noted that angels and the Virgin Mary were reported as appearing regularly on battlefields, and the apocalypse was on the minds of many during the war, in which more than 9 million soldiers were killed.

"If you don't see this, and if you don't treat it seriously the way people of the time did, you're not going to get a sense of what people really were fighting about" and why they stayed in a "long, horrendous war" that initially was expected to last only a few months, Jenkins said in the interview.

Widespread belief in the supernatural was a driving force during the war and helped mold all three of the major religions -- Christianity, Judaism and Islam -- paving the way for modern views of religion and violence, he said.

"Jihads and holy wars broke out after the war across the world, and most of that movement came out of World War I," Jenkins said.

The notion of being part of a holy war "cast a very long shadow" into the 1920s, the 1930s and even into the 1940s, when popular secular movements such Nazism, fascism and communism used similar rhetoric, he said.

But if Germany saw itself as fighting a holy war in World War I, they had to ask themselves why they lost, Jenkins said.

"Their answer was that the devil's agents were among them. That goes a long way to explaining the vicious and homicidal anti-Semitism."

Jenkins is co-director of the Program on Historical Studies of Religion in Baylor's Institute for Studies of Religion. He also is the author of "Laying Down the Sword" and "Jesus Wars: How Four Patriarchs, Three Queens and Two Emperors Decided What Christians Would Believe for the Next 1,500 Years."

Story Source:

The above story is based on materials provided by Baylor University. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.

Vaccination opt out is a cop out that literally is making people sick, says infectious disease leader

Measles have reached a 20-year high in the United States and the cause lies squarely with those who deliberately refuse to be vaccinated.

Eighty-five percent of the unvaccinated U.S. residents who contracted measles cited religious, philosophical or personal reasons for not getting immunized, according to the Center for Disease Control. "Religious, philosophical or personal reasons are not medical reasons for not getting vaccinated," says Jorge Parada, MD, medical director, infectious disease at Loyola University Health System.

Between January 1 and May 23 of 2014, 288 measles cases were reported to the federal health agency, the highest year-to-date total since 1994. Nationwide, measles has caused 43 patients to be hospitalized this year but no deaths have occurred.

"People who consciously opt out of vaccines are depending on herd immunity -- that enough other people will get vaccinated so as to prevent infection -- which seriously undermines the herd immunity they depend on for safety," says Dr. Parada. "It's a numbers game, and America is losing ground in the fight against preventable disease."

Parada says the people he fears for most are those who for legitimate medical reasons, cannot tolerate a vaccine. "Herd immunity may be life-saving for people who medically cannot tolerate a vaccine and these people are the most vulnerable to disease," says Dr. Parada. "It is frightening to every single American that people deliberately are refusing vaccinations."

People who consciously opt out of vaccinations do so counting on not getting sick, says Dr. Parada. "I have worked in Africa and Europe where I witnessed outbreaks of vaccine-preventable illness due to lack of access to medication, not due to personal choice" he says. "I saw moms begging for vaccines for their kids. In America, the collective memory of the horrific outbreaks of preventable diseases has faded. "

Many simply underestimate the risk of natural infection and overestimate the risk of vaccinations.. "Deliberately choosing not to get vaccinated while relying that others will get vaccinated is a dangerous combination," says Dr. Parada. "I only hope those who opt out do not live to discover firsthand the devastating consequences of natural infection."

Loyola University Health System is recognized internationally as a leader in infection control and prevention. Loyola is one of a few select hospitals who invest in universal screening of all inpatients for MRSA. Loyola was one of the first institutions to require all staff to have mandatory flu shots as a condition of employment. Loyola was the only academic hospital to participate in a national C. difficile study and performs the most accurate testing for the bacteria. Loyola also actively screens emergency department patients for HIV/AIDS as part of an ongoing research study

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Loyola University Health System. "Vaccination opt out is a cop out that literally is making people sick, says infectious disease leader." ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 30 May 2014. .Loyola University Health System. (2014, May 30). Vaccination opt out is a cop out that literally is making people sick, says infectious disease leader. ScienceDaily. Retrieved February 7, 2015 from www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/05/140530142418.htmLoyola University Health System. "Vaccination opt out is a cop out that literally is making people sick, says infectious disease leader." ScienceDaily. www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/05/140530142418.htm (accessed February 7, 2015).

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Vaccination opt out is a cop out that literally is making people sick, says infectious disease leader

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