Place Spirituality

The expression of attachment to the divine in certain places among different groups has been documented by anthropologists and sociologists for decades. However, the psychological processes by which this happens are not yet fully understood. This article focuses on the concept of ‘place spirituality’ as a psychological mechanism, which allows the religious believer or non-believer to achieve an organised attachment strategy, involving the interplay of place and spiritual attachment. First, place spirituality is considered as an experience that satisfies the attachment relationship criteria in that geographic places and divine entities can be perceived as ‘objects’ of attachment. Second, it is proposed that the maturational aspects of the attachment repertoire in adults make the place spirituality experience possible since adults’ cognitive abilities are much wider than those of children and can include relationships to geographical spaces and invisible divine entities. Finally, the theme of place spirituality is explored to further position the concept as a relational paradigm for understanding the relationship between place experiences and spiritual attachment.

A point-of-care diagnostics logic detector based on glucose oxidase immobilized lanthanide functionalized metal–organic frameworks

In this work, a novel lanthanide functionalized metal organic framework enzyme (L-MOF-enzyme) composite has been first prepared via a surface attachment strategy between Eu3+@UMOF and glucose oxidase (GOx).

High attachment of adjuncts in sentences with complex noun phrases during syntactic ambiguity resolution in Mongolian native speakers

The purpose of this study was to reveal the preferences in ambiguity resolution of adjunct attachments in Mongolian (referred to as high vs. low attachment). The off-line questionnaire technique in Mongolian native speakers was used to collect the material. The sample comprises data from 193 monolingual Mongolian schoolchildren and university students aged from 16 to 24 years. The typical structure of Mongolian sentences with two potential attachment sites for the adjunct is as shown by the example: Гэмт хэрэгтэн тагтан дээр байсан жүжигчнийNP2 үйлчлэгч-бусгуйгNP1 буудсан (The criminal shot the maidNP1 of the actressNP2 standing on the balcony). Statistical results of responses’ analysis show that young Mongolian native speakers tend to prefer high attachment strategy (59% of total number of cases). This percentage of NP1-preference choices shows a high level of significance of the non-random strategy when Mongolian native speakers have to resolve ambiguity of high attachment of adjunct (Z = 6.77, p <0.001). For the Mongolian language, this off-line study is the first to establish such a psycholinguistic preference. Preliminarily, it is possible to claim that Mongolian may be included in the group of languages with high attachment preference (along with Japanese, Korean, Italian, Greek, German, and Russian).

Understanding and Treatment of Patients with Persistent Somatic Complaints Through the Lens of Contemporary Attachment Theory

This paper describes recent progress in our understanding of patients with persistent somatic complaints, based on a broad and integrative attachment approach. Attachment theory indeed provides a powerful lens through which to understand patients with persistent somatic complaints and the often extremely negative states in which they find themselves. It was Bowlby's genius to describe how the attachment system is activated in times of threat and distress and normatively serves to seek the proximity of others in an attempt to co-regulate stress. Yet, this primary attachment strategy typically increasingly fails when faced with the continuous distress associated with chronic somatic complaints. What often ensues is a negative vicious cycle characterised by an excessive reliance on secondary attachment strategies (either hyperactivation or deactivating the attachment system), problems with (embodied) mentalizing, and severe problems with epistemic trust, that is, trust in others as a reliable source of knowledge, including knowledge of the patient's physical and mental state. These issues are discussed in relation to Bowlby's original formulations and contemporary thinking about persistent somatic complaints and functional somatic disorders. We also summarise implications for clinical practice.

The Identity Salience and Emotional Attachment Strategies in Alumni-University Relationships

Higher education has never truly recognized the importance of garnering the resources of alumni by expending university efforts in developing, controlling, and maintaining relationships with alumni. The purpose of this research is to tackle the long-term relationship marketing question. Drawing on the social marketing and relationship marketing literature, the authors propose and empirically test the roles of two relationship marketing strategies, namely identity salience and emotional attachment, in the alumni-university relationship. While the identity salience strategy encourages alumni to connect their identity to their former university, the emotional attachment strategy triggers the psychological ownership that leads alumni to proactively engage in university activities. Based on results of data collected from a large Midwestern university, the identity salience strategy was found to greatly affect symbolic consumption behavior while the emotional attachment strategy was found to strongly promote relationship-specific volunteering. The results also revealed that three social benefits, including development of a business network, enhancement of a friendship network, and enjoyment of participation, are associated with the two relationship marketing strategies. The authors conclude with a discussion addressing limitations of the study as well as practical and theoretical implications of the findings.

Looking to the east and the west: the double-attachment strategy used by the Hong Kong government to develop welfare to work measures for lone parents

This article discusses how the Hong Kong government used a double-attachment strategy to develop welfare to work measures for lone parents; and demonstrates how this discussion could contribute to the study of the cultural and political economy perspectives on East Asian welfare regimes. It shows that the Hong Kong government developed welfare to work measures with reference not only to the New Deal for Lone Parents in the UK, but also to certain traditional Chinese principles. In view of the Hong Kong government's attempt to attach its welfare policies to its own tradition and to the thinking of Western world, it is argued that both cultural and political economy perspectives are significant in the study of East Asian welfare regimes. Moreover, it is important to have a realistic understanding of the uniqueness of East Asian countries in the ways they organize welfare even though there are similarities with Western countries.