Relational Sanctity as a Contributor to Forgiveness: Dyadic Data From Older African American Couples

Although research finds that healthy romantic relationships can provide several benefits in older adulthood, few studies examine the relational characteristics of older African American couples. Further, despite positive associations between religiosity and age, particularly among African Americans, a dearth of dyadic data consider the importance of religious constructs within the relationships of older African Americans. To address this gap, this study utilized dyadic data from the Strong African American Couples Project to examine the interconnection between relational sanctity and forgiveness among married and cohabiting older African American couples. A total of 194 African American couples (146 married and 48 cohabiting) aged 50 to 86 years were included in the analysis, and Actor Partner Independence Models were used to test the relational effects of sanctity and forgiveness. Findings revealed that no significant effects existed when women’s relational sanctity was the predictor variable. However, men’s relational sanctity had a significant positive association with both his own forgiveness of his partner and his perception of his partner’s forgiveness. These findings have valuable implications for professionals engaging older African American couples. First, this study helps to counter the often deficit-focused literature on African American couples by highlighting the potentially stabilizing influence of viewing one’s relationship as sacred. Second, this study offers a rare glimpse into the aspects of men’s religiosity that may be more consequential than women’s. Both practitioners and clergy could use this information to inform counseling efforts that seek to build on the strengths of married and cohabiting older African American couples.

The Negotiation of English Teachers’ Identity Representation In EFL Classroom

This study applies a sociocultural linguistic approach where it examined the representation of English as International language teachers' identity negotiation in their classroom interactions. The important role of the teachers involving their efforts, values ​​, and beliefs preceded this study. Furthermore, the findings in this study indicated that the English teachers negotiate their identity as they still bring out the teaching with the reference to cultural, social, political, and religious constructs. The different ways of the teachers showing their identity infused in their linguistic use in the classroom. Moreover, the religion bounding values and beliefs that the teachers motivated to explore were shown in the connection between the English teaching topic being discussed in class and the religious concept in teaching, which in this case related to the Islamic teachings. The teachers also perceive their identities which can be assembled into four broad areas showing their understanding and the important function of their identity representations in the way of teaching. Lastly, some pedagogical implications were also found from this study.

The Historic and Contemporary Permanence of the Doctrine of Discovery in Canada

In the Truth and Reconciliation’s Final Report, four of the 94 calls to action referred to the repudiation of concepts which have justified claims of European sovereignty while implicitly refuting claims that dismiss the legitimacy of Indigenous land ownership prior to European contact. This paper demonstrates how the concepts of terra nullius and the Doctrine of Discovery have prevented the recognition and affirmation of Indigenous peoples’ sovereignty in Canada historically and presently. This article will first introduce the concepts of the Doctrine of Discovery and terra nullius as religious constructs and demonstrate how these concepts became integrated into the colonial mentality of European countries by drawing from Andrew Crosby and Jeffery Monaghan’s concept of “settler governmentality.” These two concepts, in particular, justified the false pretensions of European countries to assume they could occupy, ‘discover’ and take the land from Indigenous peoples. By acknowledging Indigenous sovereignty is inherently connected to their relationship with the land, this article will conclude by analyzing the work of contemporary academics and reports that argue Indigenous laws cannot be adequately acknowledged under the current Canadian legislation.

Vaya Con Dios: The Influence of Religious Constructs on Stressors around the Migration Process and U.S. Lived Experiences among Latina/o Immigrants

This qualitative study explores the role of religious practices on the migration process and the U.S. lived experiences of Latina/o immigrants. We conducted semi-structured interviews with 20 Latino/a immigrant adults living in a southern state of the United States. Interviews focused on participants’ migration experiences, religious constructs, and stress responses. Results revealed that religious practices provided strength, well-being, and positive life outlook during the migration process. After migration, religious practices also assisted participants in creating a sense of community/family, as well as provided financial and social support during difficult times. Recommendations for future interdisciplinary research and for practitioners are discussed for individuals working with Latinx and immigrant populations.

Centrality of Religiosity Scale in Polish Research: A Curvilinear Mechanism that Explains the Categories of Centrality of Religiosity

The centrality of religiosity scale (CRS) is a measure of the importance of religious constructs in personality. The Polish CRS has been applied in more than 40 published studies on the psychology of religion, with over 18,000 total participants. However, no comprehensive overview on the Polish CRS is available. This paper shows how using the CRS sheds light on different patterns in which religion integrates with other psychological variables. It consists of three parts: first, we introduce the Polish adaptation of the CRS; second, we present the review of the research using the Polish CRS; and finally, we provide research results that suggest a curvilinear mechanism for explaining the categories of the centrality of religiosity. Three measures were applied to the research: the CRS, emotions toward God scale, and content of prayer scale-revised. The results indicated that there is a curvilinear relationship between centrality of religiosity and emotions toward God, prayer types, and styles of request prayer (excluding passive request prayer). We determined the changepoints at which the relationship between the centrality of religiosity and the religious contents changes. This finding allowed us to provide empirical confirmation of Huber’s thesis (2003) that there is a different way of operating low, medium, and high scores in centrality, namely marginal, subordinated, and central religiosity. The study also broadens our understanding of each of these types of religiosity.

A Construal Level Account of the Impact of Religion and God on Prosociality

This research shows that the two most prevalent religious constructs—God and religion—differentially impact cognition. Activating thoughts about God (vs. religion) induces a relatively more abstract (vs. concrete) mindset (Studies 1a–1c). Consequently, time donation intentions (Study 2) and actual monetary donations (Study 3) after a God (vs. religion) prime increase when people are presented an abstractly (vs. concretely) framed donation appeal. Similarly, people donate more money to distant (vs. close) donation targets, which are construed relatively abstractly (vs. concretely), when a religious speech activates predominantly God-specific (vs. religion-specific) thoughts (Study 4). These effects are mediated by “feeling right” under construal level fit (Study 3). Overall, this research significantly advances extant knowledge on religious cognition and past research on the link between religion and prosociality.

Brazilian Validation of Centrality of Religiosity Scale (CRS-10BR and CRS-5BR)

The centrality of religiosity scale (CRS), available in three versions (with 5, 10 and 15 items), is a measuring instrument that identifies the central importance of religiosity in the psychological construction and in the behavior of an individual. According to the literature, five components together express the centrality of religion in life: Public practice, private practice, ideological, intellectual, and religious experience. These components are the ground on which religious constructs are formed and activated. For the validation of the scale in the Brazilian cultural context, two versions were tested (CRS-10BR and CRS-5BR) with data collected from a general population (N = 687). Exploratory Factor Analysis (N = 334) resulted in a five-factor solution congruent to CRS-10BR. Confirmatory Factor Analysis (N = 353) demonstrated that a five-factor solution (Intellect, Ideology, Private Practice, Public Practice and Religious Experience) indicated better fit indexes than the single-factor solution of five items (CRS-5BR). Thus, CRS-10BR is recommended to capture CRS full construct. However, the CRS-5BR version can be considered suitable for use in the Brazilian population when the context is demanding simpler and faster data collection.

Emerging Transitions in the Meaning of Religious Constructs: The Case of the Philippines

Recent data from two local empirical studies on religion (Baring et al. 2018) and the sacred (Baring et al. 2017) show how an imminent shift in Filipino youth attitudes articulates new perspectives on religion, religiosity, and spirituality. This paper presents an analysis of three emerging peculiar characterizations of religious experience by young students culled from two previous empirical studies. These newfound descriptions indicate a departure from traditional binary religious categories (e.g., sacred–profane, religious–spiritual) typically employed in many studies. The first describes a peculiar interpretation of religious experience indicating an epistemological shift from an exclusive definition to a diffused interpretation of religious–spiritual categories: as “personal religiosity” and “institutional spirituality”. Personal religiosity reports an unexpected combination of personal ethical forms of de-institutionalized religious views of students. Institutional spirituality represents beliefs that honor institutional affiliation. The second describes the emergence of personal–communal poles discerned from their notions of religion and sacred. The third highlights the ethical orientation of students’ religious perceptions. These peculiar conceptual shifts may have pastoral and theological implications.