Just world beliefs, personal success and beliefs in conspiracy theories

Do those who believe in conspiracy theories feel less happy and healthy than others? Do they believe the world is simply unjust? This study was concerned with how demographic factors, personal ratings of success, personal ideology (political and religious beliefs) and Just World Beliefs are related to Conspiracy Theories. In total, 406 participants completed two questionnaires: Just World scale (Rubin & Peplau, 1975) and Conspiracy Theories Inventory (Swami et al., 2010) and provided various personal details. The Just World Scale yielded two scores: Just and Unjust beliefs. Participants also reported on their health, happiness and success and a reliable composite measure of well-being was computed. A regression showed younger males, with Unjust World beliefs and politically right-wing views, were more likely to endorse Conspiracy Theories. The discussion revolved around explaining individual differences in accepting these theories. Implications and limitations are discussed.

Ideology and us

This chapter takes the next step and focuses on ideology's relations with 'us' — the people on the receiving end. The chapter argues that there has been little exploration of the whys and wherefores of nature of ideology. Here the story seems to be one of a widespread lack of both familiarity and ease with the idea. Starting with the individual, the chapter explores how ideology impacts on us personally. It considers the idea of people's personal ideology, the forms it may take and what may shape it. Ultimately, the chapter examines the ideological context of our individual experience, examining two extreme ideologies of the twentieth century and the broader insights they offer as case studies.

Life and Background

This foundational chapter presents Mitchell’s writing as a barometer of the times that he inhabited. It sets out the book’s biographical and critical aims to examine the precise nature of the author’s literary achievement against the dramatic geopolitical background of the early decades of the twentieth century. Drawing authoritatively upon original sources, Mitchell’s short life is summarised as a triumph of innate talent over the social hardship and cultural poverty of his upbringing, from his origins in peasant society to service in the army and the airforce, thereafter moving to city life in Scotland and London, before finally settling in Welwyn Garden City. Mitchell’s personal experience of many of the key developments of the modern world, in country and city, at home and abroad, in wartime and peacetime, is shown to have shaped his personal ideology – particularly his left-wing radicalisation. The two central planks of his greatest writing, his love of nature and his fierce social commitment, are traced to his peasant upbringing as son to a poor Aberdeenshire crofter. His literary corpus is presented as a knowing response to the zeitgeist of the inter-war years, as a renunciation of outmoded Victorian modes and an embracing of the new.

The roots of ecological dominance orientation: Assessing individual preferences for an anthropocentric and hierarchically organized world

Ecological dominance is a central concept in the study of interspecies and species- environment relations. Yet, although theoretical and empirical work on ecological dominance has progressed in many scientific disciplines, the psychology of ecological dominance remains understudied. The present research attempts to advance theoretical and empirical inquiry on ecological dominance as a psychological predisposition, examining how and why it influences humans’ perceptions, attitudes, and behaviors across different relational domains (i.e., intraspecies, interspecies, human-environment). To this end, we validate a novel measure, the Ecological Dominance Orientation (EDO) scale, based on the popular iconic depiction of eco-centric vs. anthropocentric arrangements of the relationship between humans, non-human animals, and the natural environment. In two pre-registered studies conducted across 2 countries (N = 1,312), we demonstrate that EDO a) shapes attitudes in a similar fashion both within and between different relational domains (i.e., intergroup, interspecies, human-environment relations), b) is uniquely predictive of numerous socially consequential attitudes across relational domains (i.e., modern sexism, modern racism, speciesism, anthropocentrism) over and above established measures of personal ideology and beliefs, and c) is reliable over time. This research extends classical Social Dominance Theory (Sidanius and Pratto, 1999) by theorizing about the socio-ecological roots of intergroup, interspecies, and human-environment relations as hierarchically structured power relations. Theoretical and practical implications of social and ecological dominance orientations are discussed.

Exploring the Potential of Religious Literacy in Pakistani Education

Religious education is a compulsory subject in Pakistani schools in which students learn basic knowledge about Islam without exploring the sectarian differences between each sect of Islam. The division of Muslims into Sunni and Shia and the further division of Sunni Muslims into different sects has caused massive sectarian violence in Pakistan. This study uses qualitative methods to explore the possibility of engaging with religious literacy and religious education to explain the purpose, contents, and practical application of religious education and to mitigate existing challenges linked to religion in Pakistan. Even though religious education does not support sectarian differences, individual opinions about sectarian differences are still a major component of divisiveness in Pakistani society. Through interviews with 25 teachers from different levels of education (six primary school teachers, five high school teachers, five college teachers, five university teachers, and four religious school teachers), in this article, I argue that teachers of religious education in schools are neither following a common faith in teaching religious education nor are they in full agreement on providing equal rights to all students of different religious beliefs. Rather, most believe in their personal ideology centered on their own particular religious sect that largely rejects the concept of religious literacy. There is a need for evaluation and improvement of the teaching and learning of religion in schools in order to explain misperceptions about its practical application as well as to engage religious education with diversity.

Ideology Between the Lines: Lay Inferences About Scientists’ Values and Motives

While philosophers emphasize the distinction between description and prescription, in practice people’s beliefs about contentious issues seem to reflect their normative commitments. Less is known about the way that people infer others’ ideology from their reports about matters of fact. In the context of scientific research on the heritability of intelligence, scientists’ normative views (Study 1a) and motives (Study 2) are inferred from the evidence they report—independently of their stated research objectives. Two preregistered replications (Studies 1b and 3) revealed that these effects generalize to other contentious domains of behavioral and social science research. Thus, laypeople view social scientific inquiry as (partly) a guided pursuit of evidence in favor of scientists’ personal ideology.