In her recent book Persons and Bodies1, Lynne Rudder Baker has defended what she calls the constitution view of persons. On this view, persons are constituted by their bodies, where “constitution” is a ubiquitous, general metaphysical relation distinct from more familiar relations, such as identity and part-whole composition.

The goal of this paper is to sketch and defend a novel conception of dignity. I begin by offering three desiderata that a theory of dignity should be able to satisfy: it should be able to explain why all human beings are owed respect, and what kind of respect we are owed; it should be able to explain how acts such as torture damage dignity, and what kinds of harms this brings about; and finally, it should be able to explain (...) why dignity is held to a higher degree by certain individuals. After demonstrating that the dominant, Kantian-inspired conception of dignity cannot fulfill these desiderata, I develop a novel conception of dignity that centers around the role of normative standards. Dignity, on this conception, involves being subject to, and then upholding, relevant normative standards; to violate someone’s dignity is to prevent them from upholding those standards. Importantly, these standards can have either a subjective or a communal source, which in turn explains both the agential and social harms that accompany dignity violations. I then draw on the idea of social dignity to explain human dignity. Unlike the dominant philosophical conception, I take human dignity to be a status that is conferred, rather than a status that is inherent. (shrink)

We argue that Schilbach et al. have neglected an important part of the social neuroscience literature involving participants in social interactions. We also clarify some part of the models the authors discussed superficially. We finally propose that social neuroscience should take into consideration the effect of being observed and the complexity of the task as potentially influencing factors.

Objective – is to formulate a methodological discourse regarding the place and role of the language interconnected with the process of socialization of a person and develop a systemic idea of the corresponding functional features. -/- Materials & Methods – this discourse is formulated on the basis of a systemic idea of the personality socialization, which, in turn, is realized using the structural-ontological method of studying the subject matter field in interdisciplinary researches. This method involves the construction (...) of special visual-graphic matrices that reflect the interaction of the primary process and the material of the studied system. -/- Results. The work with the structural-ontological matrix made it possible to analyze the functions of the language in the context of such significant factors of socialization as complex psychodynamics, civilization space and the function of reflection. At the same time, reflection is considered at the level of two plans – primary (reflection-bond) and secondary (reflection-splitting). This made it possible to deduce the idea of the role of language beyond the traditional framework of working with text and analyze the place of the language in the context of activities to establish a connection between individuals, which is realized in a specific cooperative situation (Shchedrovitsky). In particular, the look at language as a specific tool of civilizational rationing, the mechanism of which is provided through reflection-communication. Thus, the language is examined through the prism of its systemic influence on the morphology of the psyche. -/- Conclusions – a structural-ontological analysis of the place and role of language in the process of personality socialization has led us to construction of a hypothesis about the phenomenon of language discontentment, as a tendency to distance away ego-consciousness in the process of individuation from linguistic ontology. The arguments were also advanced in favor of the assumption regarding the peculiarities of the influence of language discontentment on cultural activities and the psychodynamic contribution of this phenomenon in the midlife crisis (Jung). (shrink)

Most of the discussion in bioethics and health policy concerning social responsibility for health has focused on society’s obligation to provide access to healthcare. While ensuring access to healthcare is an important social responsibility, societies can promote health in many other ways, such as through sanitation, pollution control, food and drug safety, health education, disease surveillance, urban planning and occupational health. Greater attention should be paid to strategies for health promotion other than access to healthcare, such as environmental and public (...) health and health research.Lifestyle plays a major role in most of the illnesses in industrialised nations.1 Six of the 10 leading factors contributing to the global burden of disease are lifestyle related: unsafe sex, high blood pressure, tobacco use, alcohol use, high cholesterol and obesity.2 Lifestyle-related illnesses also contribute to the rising costs of healthcare. Spending on healthcare accounts for about 16% of the gross domestic product in the USA, or US$1.9 trillion.3 Although smoking has declined steadily there since the 1960s, smoking-related medical expenses are still about US$75.5 billion per year.4 Obesity, which has been climbing in the past two decades, accounts for about US$75 billion in healthcare costs there each year.5 Alcoholism and drug addiction in the USA account for annual healthcare costs of about US$22.5 billion and US$12 billion, respectively.6,7 Federal government spending on healthcare relating to HIV/AIDS is over US$13 billion per year.8Given the well-documented relationship between lifestyle, disease burden and healthcare costs, it makes economic and medical sense to hold individuals morally responsible for their health-related choices. While this view has a great deal of intuitive appeal, it also faces numerous objections.9–12 First, holding individuals entirely responsible for their own health conflicts with medicine’s obligation to treat the sick and society’s obligation …. (shrink)

Given that many clinical research studies struggle to meet their recruitment goals, researchers are eager to identify and employ strategies that will maximize reach to eligible and int...

The theory of evolution: The rise and impact of evolutionary ideas, by R. Scoon. Evolution in its relation to the philosophy of nature and the philosophy of culture, by F.S.C. Northrop. The genetic nature of differences among men, by T. Dobzhansky. Evolutionary thought in America: Evolution and American sociology by R.E.L. Faris. The impact of the idea of evolution on the American political and constitutional tradition, by E.S. Corwin. Evolutionism in American economics, 1800-1946, by J.J. Spengler. The influence of evolutionary (...) theory upon American psychological thought, by E.G. Boring. Naturalism in American literature, by M. Cowley. The idea of organic expression and American architecture, by D.D. Egbert. Evolution and moral theory in America, W.F. Quillian, Jr. Evolution and theology in America, by S. Persons. (shrink)

The improvement of man, of his ideological and political, occupational, and moral qualities, is a most important condition for success in the building of communism. The socialization of the new man as a creatively active, spiritually rich, and harmoniously developed personality is a goal in our Party's program. It is becoming increasingly obvious that the process of socialization means much more than familiarizing a person with the ideological principles and norms of behavior of a citizen of developed (...) socialist society. Socrates long ago was astounded by the illogic of the man who knew what was good but did what was bad. (shrink)

The use of autonomous and intelligent personal social robots raises questions concerning their moral standing. Moving away from the discussion about direct moral standing and exploring the normative implications of a relational approach to moral standing, this paper offers four arguments that justify giving indirect moral standing to robots under specific conditions based on some of the ways humans—as social, feeling, playing, and doubting beings—relate to them. The analogy of “the Kantian dog” is used to assist reasoning about this. The (...) paper also discusses the implications of this approach for thinking about the moral standing of animals and humans, showing why, when, and how an indirect approach can also be helpful in these fields, and using Levinas and Dewey as sources of inspiration to discuss some challenges raised by this approach. (shrink)

Russian Abstract: Данный документ является сборником «заметок на полях», раскрывающих состав и содержание метода структурно-онтологического анализа. Указанный метод разработан для системного описания предметной области изучаемых явлений. Он включает специальную процедуру по построению структурно-онтологических матриц и алгоритм их описания. Междисциплинарная направленность метода продемонстрирована на примере анализа процесса социализации личности. English Abstract: This document is a collection of `marginal notes` revealing the composition and content of the structural ontological analysis method. The specified method is developed for a systemic description of the subject (...) matter area of the studied phenomena. It includes a special procedure for constructing structural-ontological matrices and an algorithm for their description. The interdisciplinary focus of the method is demonstrated by the example of an analysis of the personality socialization process. (shrink)

Helmut Plesner’s philosophical anthropology introduces not only the division of the world of the living being into self and environment, but also a superstructure over the zip distribution: eccentric positionality. This reflexive ability of the self to relate to itself allows the formation of personal-relative, i.e., social life. The aim of the article is: to trace the possibilities of methodological renewal of sociotheoretical discourse, which opens for him the principle of eccentric positionality.The study uses historical-comparative and logical-analytical methods. Research results. (...) H. Plesner in the idea of eccentric positionality unfolds the perspective and possible practical consequences of the establishment of human openness in the world, not stopping at the danger of finally breaking the anthropological framework of his philosophy, dissolving it in the concept of personal socialization.Conclusion. Plesner’s «social» is presented as a life phenomenon – it is the highest manifestation of life, and the process of personalization of life manifestations is a process of socialization. Taking the self beyond oneself in eccentric positionality is something more than separating oneself from the environment, opposing oneself to it and establishing an attitude towards it. In the course of establishing the relation to oneself, the self does not form it automatically – the positioning of eccentricity cannot be carried out directly – which enables a special space favorable for the «inter-self» existence of living beings, a specific sphere of «inter-self» relations – the sphere of social existence. (shrink)

The lives of children who live at the intersectional nexus between childhood autism and race may be considered as “shadow stories” that have remained silenced in autism literature. We explored the experiences of racialized parents who provide care to autistic children. We drew on a theoretical framework known as DisCrit and decolonizing arts-based methodologies. Racialized parents of autistic children demonstrated resistance along various themes, including fighting the system, protecting my child, and creating cultural communities. We join black girlhood studies, critical (...) race theory, and disabled children’s childhood studies by continuing the journey of decentering Whiteness in childhood disability research. We demonstrate how disabled racialized communities engage in activism and social justice while forming powerful counter-discourses. (shrink)

In this theoretical paper, motives for CSR are considered. An underlying assumption is that the commercial imperative is not the sole driver of CSR decision-making in private sector companies, but that the formal adoption and implementation of CSR by corporations could be associated with the changing personal values of individual managers. These values may find expression through the opportunity to exercise discretion, which may arise in various ways. It is suggested that in so far as CSR initiatives represent individuals' values, (...) so the responsibility in evidence is less obviously corporate. Our emphasis on personal initiative is intended to counter a tendency to view the corporation as the agent, and may serve to remind us that individuals can, indeed, make a difference. (shrink)

A Husserl-based social ethics is within the noetic-noematic field as disclosed through various reductions. The focus is how at the passive and active levels a bsic sense of will is in play as well as the "telos" of subjectivity in terms of both a "godly" intersubjective ideal "we". This is inseparable form the disclosure of the full sense of person through an "absolute ought" and the "truth of will" wherein the common world and common goods are tied to an ideal (...) community as a person of a higher order. (shrink)

The article is devoted to problems of creative and reproductive strategies of modern Russian pedagogy with regard to the asynchrony of cultural personality layers of students. The asynchrony of cultural and psychological personality layers means that a system of personal attitudes consists of orientations that prevailed in different historical periods and therefore is able to combine both harmony and disharmony of interaction between them. Orientation on the reproduction or on the creativity has a particularly strong influence on the (...) formation and dominance over private personal attitudes. Special attention is paid to active group learning methods that are capable of intensifying the creative development of a personality. The cause of many of the shortcomings of the modern education is the state bureaucratic activity armed of consolidating the archaic reproductive attitudes in teachers and students practices and at enhancing the asynchrony of cultural layers of personality, which hampers the further development of creativity. Much attention is paid to the traditions of Russian humanitarian thought and experience of outstanding Russian teachers largely determined the development of modern pedagogical practice. The activity of the most talented native teachers of the twentieth century was aimed at reducing the specified cultural asynchrony of pupils through active intragroup interaction with increasing inclusion of each in the process of development of modern cultural skills of creativity. Not ‘stucking‘ on the tasks that the group could decide for herself, the teacher worked "for the future", focusing it on the broader educational interests and creativity. Typology of culture correlates with cognitive mechanisms of socialization. (shrink)

The aim of this article is to show that human persons belong, ontologically, in social ontology. After setting out my views on ontology, I turn to persons and argue that they have first-person perspectives in two stages (rudimentary and robust) essentially. Then I argue that the robust stage of the first-person persective is social, in that it requires a language, and languages require linguistic communities. Then I extend the argument to cover the rudimentary stage of the first-person perspective as well. (...) I conclude by enumerating ways in which human persons differ from nonhuman animals. (shrink)

The phenomenologist Gerda Walther posits the possibility of a new social act, which she terms telepathy. It is marked by an intimate in-terpersonal union in which ego and alter ego become capable of sharing in the identical lived experience, though distant from one another. Here, there is no fusion or collective identi????ication; rather, in-dividuals, though they live the experience and mind of the other, never lose or transcend their own individuation. Unlike the act of empathy, there is no analogical transfer. (...) This article defends the possibility of a restricted sense telepathy. The author argues that four conditions must be ful????illed for telepathy to occur: recognition of a social drive; a partially willed act of mind that results in the assump-tion of a certain stance, but it also comes upon us as an experience; constitution of subjects as persons marked by a “fundamental es-sence”; and I-splitting. (shrink)

Motivated by the social and environmental challenges resulting from the COVID‐19 pandemic, this research examines the influence of the “big five” personality traits; extroversion, agreeableness, openness, conscientiousness, and neuroticism on sustainable social responsibility with a mediating role of bricolage. We collected empirical evidence from 245 family‐owned SMEs. The results indicate that the personality traits do not directly influence sustainable social responsibility, although the traits (except extroversion) influence bricolage. Moreover, we found that open, conscious, and agreeable personalities indirectly contribute (...) to sustainable social responsibility, with bricolage as a mediator. Our findings encourage enterprises to focus on those personality traits during crises (especially COVID‐19) that empower people to effectively manage existing resources (e.g., bricolage) and protect their stakeholders. Family‐owned SMEs need to assign resource utilization tasks to family members having personalities of openness, conscientiousness, and neuroticism because these kinds of people have high capacities for bricolage. (shrink)

Successful reform of the higher education system in the context of COVID-19, both in a single country and in the world in the context of its development toward democratization, requires updated approaches to assessing the results of socialization of various categories of young people, and especially students. Since student age is a period of active formation of the inner need of a person to correlate his own aspirations with the interests of society, it is sensitive for the assimilation of (...) social experience, socially significant activities, and the formation of an active creative personality. Higher education in the context of COVID-19 faces an important task - to ensure the education of "vital and socially competent person who can make independent choices and make responsible decisions in various life situations" the formation of their own motives and interests. It is important how much the student as a subject of socialization, independent in the information space, what is the level of his social competence, how quickly he chooses the field of activity in which he can achieve high professionalism. The article deals with the problem of socialization of student youth in modern conditions of a higher educational institution, associated with the processes of development and education of the individual. The features, stages and socio-pedagogical conditions of successful socialization of students in the context of COVID-19 are revealed. (shrink)

_Personal Autonomy and Social Oppression_ addresses the impact of social conditions, especially subordinating conditions, on personal autonomy. The essays in this volume are concerned with the philosophical concept of autonomy or self-governance and with the impact on relational autonomy of the oppressive circumstances persons must navigate. They address on the one hand questions of the theoretical structure of personal autonomy given various kinds of social oppression, and on the other, how contexts of social oppression make autonomy difficult or impossible.

The literature acknowledges a distinction between immoral, amoral and moral management. This paper makes a case for the employee (at any level) as a moral agent, even though the paper begins by highlighting a body of evidence which suggests that individual moral agency is sacrificed at work and is compromised in deference to other pressures. This leads to a discussion about the notion of discretion and an examination of a separate, contrary body of literature which indicates that some individuals in (...) corporations may use their discretion to behave in a socially entrepreneurial manner. My underlying assumption is that CSR isn’t solely driven by economics and that it may also be championed as a result of a personal morality, inspired by employees’ own socially oriented personal values. A conceptual framework is put forward and it is suggested that individuals may be categorized as Active or Frustrated Corporate Social Entrepreneurs; Conformists or Apathetics, distinguished by their individualistic or collectivist personal values. In a discussion of the nature of values, this paper highlights how values may act as drivers of our behavior and pays particular attention to the values of the entrepreneur, thereby linking the existing debate on moral agency with the field of corporate social responsibility. (shrink)

What is a person? This fundamental question is a perennial concern of philosophers and theologians. But, Christian Smith here argues, it also lies at the center of the social scientist’s quest to interpret and explain social life. In this ambitious book, Smith presents a new model for social theory that does justice to the best of our humanistic visions of people, life, and society. Finding much current thinking on personhood to be confusing or misleading, Smith finds inspiration in critical realism (...) and personalism. Drawing on these ideas, he constructs a theory of personhood that forges a middle path between the extremes of positivist science and relativism. Smith then builds on the work of Pierre Bourdieu, Anthony Giddens, and William Sewell to demonstrate the importance of personhood to our understanding of social structures. From there he broadens his scope to consider how we can know what is good in personal and social life and what sociology can tell us about human rights and dignity. Innovative, critical, and constructive,_ What Is a Person?_ offers an inspiring vision of a social science committed to pursuing causal explanations, interpretive understanding, and general knowledge in the service of truth and the moral good. (shrink)

Purpose: This study explores social networkers' interest in and attitudes toward personal genome testing (PGT), focusing on expectations related to the clinical integration of PGT results. Methods: An online survey of 1,087 social networking users was conducted to assess 1) use and interest in PGT; 2) attitudes toward PGT companies and test results; and 3) expectations for the clinical integration of PGT. Descriptive statistics were calculated to summarize respondents' characteristics and responses. Results: Six percent of respondents have used PGT, 64% (...) would consider using PGT, and 30% would not use PGT. Of those who would consider using PGT, 74% report they would use it to gain knowledge about disease in their family. 34% of all respondents consider the information obtained from PGT to be a medical diagnosis. 78% of those who would consider PGT would ask their physician for help interpreting test results, and 61% of all respondents believe physicians have a professional obligation to help individuals interpret PGT results. Conclusion: Respondents express interest in using PGT services, primarily for purposes related to their medical care and expect physicians to help interpret PGT results. Physicians should therefore be prepared for patient demands for information and counsel on the basis of PGT results. (shrink)

The idea of personalized nutrition is to give tailored dietary advice based on personal health-related data, i.e. phenotoype, genotype, or lifestyle. PN may be seen as part of a general trend towards personalised health care and currently various types of business models are already offering such services in the market. This paper explores ethical issues of PN by examining how PN services within the contextual environment of four future scenarios about health and nutrition in Europe might affect aspects of social (...) justice according to Martha Nussbaum’s capability approach. The scenarios have been created by a mixed group of stakeholders and experts in three consecutive workshops. This resulted in the definition of four future scenarios within a scenario space consisting of two variables: the ‘logic of health care systems’ and ‘conception of health’. Within each scenario, PN is likely to play a more or less important role in improving health by influencing food consumption patterns in society. Nussbaum’s capability approach implies a concept of social justice as a function of a minimum standard of human dignity. This denotes an account for equality in terms of a minimum of entitlements. However, also the ability of achieving individual objectives is essential for social justice. Personalisation advice in health and food consumption patterns, as aimed for by PN, is therefore acceptable provided a minimum of entitlements is guaranteed to all members of a society, and at the same time freedom concerning personal preferences is respected. Potential variation of how different people might benefit from PN should therefore be consistent with the minimum required as defined by the list of capabilities. (shrink)

In discussion about basic theoretical approaches in a non-Cartesian psychology several candidates for a key concept were proposed, such as action, activity, relation, dialogue and discourse. None of these concepts, however, sufficiently grounds psychological theories of individual psychology in social practice. To accomplish this we need to conceptualize subjects as participants in structures of ongoing social practice. In this paper I argue why and address issues of subjectivity as encountered by persons in their participation in complex structures of social practice. (...) I introduce the concept of personal conduct of life and life-trajectory as elaborations of my theory. And I discuss this theoretical approach and show what is at stake in developing it by comparing it to similar approaches in the current literature on the person, self, and identity. (shrink)

In the Sociology of Emotion and Affect Studies, affects are usually regarded as an aspect of human beings alone, or of impersonal or collective atmospheres. However, feelings and emotions are only specific cases of affectivity that require subjective inner selves, while the concept of ‘atmospheres’ fails to explain the singularity of each individual case. This article develops a theory of social affect that does not reduce affect to either personal feelings or collective emotions. First, I use a Spinozist understanding of (...) the ‘body’ to conceptualize the receptivity and mutual constitution of bodies, to show how affects do not ‘belong’ to anybody; they are not solely attributable either to the human or to any kind of body alone, but emerge in situations of the encounter and interaction. Next I build upon Jean-Marie Guyau’s concept of transmissions to show how we can theorize affect as an emerging transmission between and among bodies. Finally, I demonstrate how we now have a complete conceptual frame for theorizing affect in relation to all bodies in any given social scene, the grand composition of which I call affectif. (shrink)

Persons are biological beings who participate in social environments. Is human sociality different from that of insects? Is human sociality different from that of a computer or robot with elaborate rules for social interaction in its program memory? What is the relationship between the biology of humans and the sociality of persons? I argue that persons constitute an emergent ontological level that develops out of the biological and psychological realm, but that is largely social in its own constitution. This requires (...) a characterization of the relationships between the bio/psychological and the social, and of the developmental process of emergence. It also requires a framework for modeling the bio/psychological level that makes any such emergence possible. Neither attachment theory nor information processing frameworks, for example, will do — the major orientations toward human sociality today make understanding that sociality ultimately impossible. Only an action framework, such as that of Peirce or Piaget2, suffices. (shrink)

In this paper the thesis that personal identity is essentially constituted by social relations is defended. To make this plausible the problem of personal identity is broken down into four interrelated sets of problems. Of these, the unity -- and the persistence -- problems cannot be resolved using the notion of a person and therefore personal identity in this sense is not socially constituted. But this paper argues that the conditions of personhood, and the structure of a human being's (...) class='Hi'>personality -- which are the other two sets into which the problem of personal identity is dissolved -- are best understood as being constituted by social relations, especially relations of mutual. (shrink)

Background: Some members of the general public feel that patients who cause their own organ failure through smoking, alcohol use, or drug use should not receive equal priority for scarce transplantable organs. This may reflect a belief that these patients (1) cause their own illness, (2) have poor transplant prognoses or, (3) are simply unworthy. We explore the role that social acceptability, personal responsibility, and prognosis play in people's judgments about transplant allocation. Methods: By random allocation, we presented 283 prospective (...) jurors in Philadelphia county with one of five questionnaire versions. In all questionnaires, subjects were asked to distribute transplantable hearts between patients with and without a history of three controversial behaviors (eating high fat diets against doctors’ advice, cigarette smoking, or intravenous drug use). Across the five questionnaire versions, we varied the relative prognosis of the transplant candidates and whether their behavior caused their primary organ Results: Subjects were significantly less willing to distribute organs to intravenous drug users than to cigarette smokers or people eating high fat diets (p le; 0.0005), even when intravenous drug users had better transplant outcomes than other patients. Subjects’ allocation decisions were influenced by transplant prognosis, but not by whether the behavior in question was causally responsible for the patients’ organ failure. Conclusion: People's unwillingness to give scarce transplantable organs to patients with controversial behaviors cannot be explained totally on the basis of those behaviors either causing their primary organ failure or making them have worse transplant prognoses. Instead, many people believe that such patients are simply less worthy of scarce transplantable organs. (shrink)

How do we refer to people in everyday conversation? No matter the language or culture, we must choose from a range of options: full name ('Robert Smith'), reduced name ('Bob'), description ('tall guy'), kin term ('my son') etc. Our choices reflect how we know that person in context, and allow us to take a particular perspective on them. This book brings together a team of leading linguists, sociologists and anthropologists to show that there is more to person reference than meets (...) the eye. Drawing on video-recorded, everyday interactions in nine languages, it examines the fascinating ways in which we exploit person reference for social and cultural purposes, and reveals the underlying principles of person reference across cultures from the Americas to Asia to the South Pacific. Combining rich ethnographic detail with cross-linguistic generalizations, it will be welcomed by researchers and graduate students interested in the relationship between language and culture. (shrink)

Alea, Bluck, Mroz and Edwards examine how the communication of autobiographical stories via face‐to‐face vs. instant message (IM) influences the extent to which social bonds form between strangers. The results of their study show that the in‐person communication of strangers’ autobiographical memories leads to greater engagement and higher empathy rates in the listener of those stories. That is, sharing autobiographical memories face‐to‐face (compared to IM) is positively correlated with positive feelings and closeness in the listener of those stories.

This book is a unique exploration of the idea of the "second person" in human interaction, the idea that face-to-face interactions involve a distinctive form of reciprocal mental state attributions that mediates their dynamical unfolding. Challenging the view of mental attribution as a sort of "theory of mind", Pérez and Gomila argue that the second person perspective of mental understanding is the conceptually, ontogenetically, and phylogenetically basic way of understanding mentality. Second person interaction provides the opportunity for the acquisition of (...) concepts of mental states of increasing complexity. The book reviews the growing interest in a variety of second person phenomena, both in development and in adulthood, presenting research that shows how participants in human interaction attribute psychological states of a referentially transparent kind to each other. This review documents the spontaneous preference for face-to-face interaction, from eye contact to joint attention, from forms of vitality to communicative intentions, from interaction detection to joint action, and from synchrony to interpersonal coordination. Also looking at the implications and applications of the second person perspective within fields as diverse as art and morality, this book is fascinating reading for students and academics in social and cognitive psychology, cognitive science, neuroscience, and philosophy. (shrink)

The book delves into mathematical mindsets, a current approach to understanding mathematical identities, as well as success and failure in mathematics.

Previous studies linking personality and social integration with religiosity conflate the weakly religious with the completely nonreligious, and religious belief with group membership, leading to spurious associations. The present study characterizes the growing nonreligious population by comparing church and secular group members on personality characteristics and social integration. Although church members were higher in Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, and perceived social support, these differences were largely eliminated when controlling for demographics and group attendance. Secular group members were higher on Intellect/Openness. (...) Many previously reported characteristics associated with religiosity are a function not of belief itself, but of strong convictions and group identification. (shrink)

The study examines a model proposing relationships between personal values, positive (i.e., benefits) and negative (i.e., threats) appraisal of immigrants, and social contact. Based on a values-attitudes-behavior paradigm, the study extends previous work on personal values and attitudes to immigrants by examining not only negative but also positive appraisal and their connection with social contact with immigrants. Using a representative sample of 1,600 adults in the majority population in Israel, results showed that higher preference for anxiety-avoidance values (self-enhancement and conservation) (...) was related to higher levels of perceived threat and lower levels of benefit, while higher preference for anxiety-free values (self-transcendence and openness to change) was related to higher levels of perceived benefits and lower levels of threat. Greater opportunities for contact and perceived benefits and lower levels of threats were related to more social contact. The model showed good fit across the total sample, and across four diverse immigrant groups in Israel (diaspora immigrants from the Former Soviet Union, Ethiopia and Western countries, and asylum seekers). In line with a Stereotype Content Model, which suggests that group-specific stereotypes are related to social structural characteristics of the group, associations between variables differed by group. Results strengthen a theoretical conceptualization that posits an indirect relationship between personal value preferences and behavior through group appraisal. They highlight the importance of comprehensive conceptualizations including both positive and negative appraisal of immigrants, which take into account the way different groups may be appraised by the majority population. (shrink)