Dimensions Of Beliefs Research Articles

POTENSI SPIRITUALITAS GURU PAI DI GARUT SELATAN

This study aimed to get an overview of the religious spirituality potential of Islamic Studies teacher in South Garut region, West Java Province. This research used survey method with questionnaires as the instrument for collecting primary data. Respondents in this research amounted to 130 Islamic Studies teachers in South Garut region, West Java Province. Based on result of this research, found that the description of religious spirituality potential of Islamic Studies teachers SouthGarut, West Java Provinceis generallyconsidered good. As for the details, as follows: (1) the belief dimensions in the excellent category, (2) the worship dimensions in good category, (3) the intellection dimensions in good category, (4) the moral dimensions in good categories. And (5) the physical dimension in good categories.

An Analysis of the Candidate Teachers’ Beliefs Related to Knowledge, Learning and Teaching

Candidate teachers have several beliefs related to their knowledge, learning and teaching. The purpose of this study is to analyze the beliefs of candidate teachers about knowledge, learning and teaching. Candidate teachers were assigned a scale and from the answers “belief points” were obtained based on their attitudes about these three dependent variables. It is investigated whether or not there is a significant difference in candidate teachers’ belief points about knowledge, learning and teaching. In addition, this research aims to show to what extent they have these beliefs and predictive among these belief dimensions regardless of variable identification. The relational descriptive method is used in this study. The study was conducted on the 297 primary school candidate teachers selected as subjects of the research in the last year of their education. It is found out that the belief of teaching needs to be constructivist and learning depends on process and efforts are indirectly predicted by the belief on the relativity of knowledge. Similarly, traditional beliefs on teaching are directly and indirectly predicted by the belief that learning depends on effort and ability and the belief in objective and ultimate knowledge. Consequently, it is determined that individuals’ beliefs on knowledge, learning and teaching are highly interdependent.

Collectivism and Customer Orientation among Nurses: A Case Study in Iran

The mission of organizations is to provide good service for the customers. Weakness in building collectivism morale leads to forgetting group needs and subsequently organizational objectives and customer needs and reduces the patients’ referral. On the same ground, the present study was carried out to investigate the relationship between collectivism and customer orientation in nurses’ staff which is the most effective hospital staff. The present analytical study was conducted in 2013 on a group of 200 nurses in a specialty hospital in Tehran. The instruments for gathering data include nurses’ demographic information (gender, age, marital status and work experience), collectivism questionnaire (10 questions in three dimensions of beliefs, values and norms), and the checking list of nursing staff’s extent of customer orientation (27 questions in 8 aspects). Data analysis was done by SPSS.19 and Spearman’s correlation tests, Chi Square, and single-sample T-test.The results showed that nursing staff had high collectivism morale. Among aspects of customer orientation, the highest and the lowest mean and standard deviation were respectively related to employees’ honesty (2/87±0) and employees’ appearance (1/71±0/66). There was a significant relationship between the two elements of customer orientation and collectivism (002/0=P). In addition, apart from the two dimensions of service assurance and employees’ appearance, significant relationships were observed between other aspects of customer orientation and collectivism.Regarding the relationship between collectivism and customer orientation in nursing staff, it can be said that customer orientation in an organization can be promoted by reinforcing collectivism morale in employees. Offering educational programs for promoting collectivism morale and subsequently promoting customer orientation can lead to providing good customer service.

High school students’ scientific epistemological beliefs, self-efficacy in learning physics and attitudes toward physics: a structural equation model

Background: There are some theoretical evidences that explain the relationships between core beliefs (i.e., epistemological beliefs) and peripheral beliefs (self-efficacy in learning) in the literature. The close relationships of such type of beliefs with attitudes are also discussed by some researchers. Constructing a model that investigates these relationships by considering theoretical and empirical evidences can empower researchers to discuss these relationships more comprehensively.Purpose: The purpose of this study is to explore the relationships among Turkish high school students’ scientific epistemological beliefs, self-efficacy in learning physics and their attitudes toward physics.Sample: A total of 632 high school students participated in this study; however, 269 female and 229 male (a total of 498) high school students’ data were used.Design and methods: Three distinct instruments that measure scientific epistemological beliefs, self-efficacy in learning physics and attitudes toward physics were combined into a unique questionnaire form and it was distributed to high school students. To explore the relationships among these variables, structural equation modeling was used.Results: The results showed that scientific epistemological belief dimensions uncovered by the nature of knowing (source and justification) significantly and positively related to both self-efficacy in learning physics and attitudes toward other important physics dimensions. Additionally, self-efficacy in learning physics significantly and positively predicted attitudes toward multiple physics dimensions (importance, comprehension and requirement). However, epistemological belief dimensions related to the nature of knowledge (certainty and development) did not have significant impact on self-efficacy in learning physics or attitudes toward physics.Conclusions: This study concludes that there are positive and significant relationships among Turkish high school students’ scientific epistemological beliefs, self-efficacy in learning physics and their attitudes toward physics.

Three-year-olds express suspense when an agent approaches a scene with a false belief.

Research on early false belief understanding has entirely relied on affect-neutral measures such as judgments (standard tasks), attentional allocation (looking duration, preferential looking, anticipatory looking), or active intervention. We used a novel, affective measure to test whether preschoolers affectively anticipate another's misguided acts. In two experiments, 3-year-olds showed more expressions of suspense (by, e.g. brow furrowing or lip biting) when they saw an agent approach a scene with a false as opposed to a true belief (Experiment 1) or ignorance (Experiment 2). This shows that the children anticipated the agent's surprise and disappointment when encountering reality. The findings suggest that early implicit knowledge of false beliefs includes anticipations of the affective implications of erring. This vital dimension of beliefs should no longer be ignored in research on early theory of mind.

Belief in a Zero-Sum Game as a Social Axiom

This article introduces a novel concept, Belief in a Zero-Sum Game (BZSG), proposed as another belief dimension in the family of social axioms. We conceptualize BZSG as a belief system about the antagonistic nature of social relations—that one person’s gain is possible only at the expense of other persons. It appears on a level of personal convictions and as a cultural worldview ideology. We found that persons or nations who believe in a zero-sum game engage in win-lose social exchanges over limited resources. Psychometric evidence for the universality of the BZSG scale in a large pancultural project of 37 nations is presented, where individual and cultural-level predictors of BZSG were tested, followed by their multilevel analyses. BZSG, which shows a conceptual and empirical affinity with societal cynicism, is moderated by previously described cultural dimensions and by objective socio-economic indices.

Why is the equilibrium notion essential for a unified institutional theory? A friendly remark on the article by Hindriks and Guala

AbstractThis short commentary basically supports the unified approach to institutions of Hindriks and Guala (2014). First, using a flow diagram over the two-by-two boxes in the space spanned by the collective-individual dimension and the behavior (play)-cognitive (belief) dimension, it argues that the classical game theory and the so-called institution-as-rule theory are both incomplete and that they should be regarded as complementary for an integrated theory of institution as a process. However, the substantive forms of institutions ought to be linguistic representations (i.e. rules and ideas) that summarize equilibrium states of play of the societal game so as to mediate them to be incorporated into minds of players as collective intentionality (i.e. shared beliefs). From this perspective this note also supports the authors’ argument to unpack the ‘Y’ term in Searle's notion of constitutive rule (that is, the regulative rule) and submit it to be based on a neo-Hegelian notion of mutual recognition (i.e. equilibrium).

Early trauma, negative affect, and anxious attachment: the role of metacognition

Background and Objectives: Metacognition is linked to the etiology and maintenance of negative emotions and psychological disorder in the Self-Regulatory Executive Function Model. Although there is significant evidence supporting the model, little is currently known about the situational factors for developing dysfunctional metacognitions. The current study explored the hypothesis that early aversive experiences might be important and also tested if metacognitions could mediate the relationship between such experiences and psychological symptoms. Design and Methods: Three hundred and fifty non-clinical adults completed a retrospective early trauma measure, as well as measures of current metacognitive beliefs, negative affect, and anxious attachment. Results: Early emotional abuse positively and significantly correlated with several metacognitive belief dimensions but other forms of early trauma did not. Metacognition fully mediated the relationship between emotional abuse and negative affect. Anxious attachment was also positively and significantly associated with metacognitive beliefs and specific relationships remained after controlling for early emotional abuse and current negative affect. Conclusions: Findings are consistent with the ideas that: (i) early negative experiences, and emotional abuse in particular, could be a factor in the formation of problematic metacognitions and (ii) these metacognitions may be important in determining the effects of abuse on subsequent psychological symptoms.

Without God, everything is permitted? The reciprocal influence of religious and meta-ethical beliefs

The relation between religious and moral thought has been difficult to unravel because of the multifaceted nature of both religion and morality. We chose to study the belief dimension of religion and the meta-ethics dimension of morality and investigated the relation between God-related thoughts and objectivist/subjectivist morality in three studies. We expected a reciprocal relation between the idea of God and objective morality since God is one prominent way through which objective moral truths could be grounded and thus the lack of such objective truths might imply the absence of God who could set such truths. Study 1 revealed negative correlations between moral subjectivism and several measures of religious belief. Study 2 showed that people adopt moral objectivism more and moral subjectivism less after being implicitly primed with religious words in a sentence unscrambling task. Study 3 showed that people express less confidence about the existence of God after reading a persuasive text about the subjective nature of moral truths. Taken together, the results demonstrate that religious and meta-ethical beliefs are indeed related and can reciprocally influence each other.

Zorgidealen in Nederland: verschuivingen tussen 2002 en 2011

Summary Care ideals in the Netherlands: Shifts between 2002 and 2011[1]Our point of departure is that normative care beliefs can inform the current care policy debate. We conduct latent class regression analyses using two waves of Netherlands Kinship Panel Study data (N=4,163) to distinguish care ideals that capture multiple dimensions of normative care beliefs simultaneously. We also assess how these care ideals have shifted in the early 21st century. We distinguish four care ideals: warm-modern (family and state jointly responsible for caring, egalitarian gender roles), cold-modern (large state responsibility, restricted family responsibility, egalitarian gender roles), traditional (restricted state responsibility, large family responsibility, moderately traditional gender roles) and cold-traditional (large state responsibility, restricted family responsibility, traditional gender roles). The probability to adhere to a cold-modern care ideal relative to a warm-modern, traditional or cold-traditional care ideal is higher for men than for women. Between 2002 and 2011 a shift away from warm-modern care ideals and towards cold-modern care ideals has taken place. This is remarkable, because Dutch policy makers have increasingly encouraged family members to take on an active role in caring for dependent relatives.

Epistemological beliefs and knowledge sharing in work teams

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to present a knowledge-sharing model that explains individual members’ motivation to share knowledge (knowledge donation and knowledge collection). Design/methodology/approach – The model is based on social-constructivist theories of epistemological beliefs, learning and distributed cognition, and is organized via the mechanism of propositional control, which suggests that attitudes or beliefs largely drive one’s behaviors. This paper also explores how epistemological belief systems may influence behavior processes at work. Findings – The model presented consists of five epistemological belief dimensions consistent with previous theorization about personal epistemologies. This paper demonstrates how sophisticated (as opposed to naive) beliefs on each of these five dimensions can stimulate one’s intrinsic desire to engage in knowledge-sharing behaviors. Research limitations/implications – The model is constrained by the assumptions that learning takes place socially and within a specific context (in this case, the team setting), and that a great deal of knowledge sharing is preferred over little knowledge sharing. This paper adds to the understanding of workplace learning by establishing a possible new antecedent to explain the process of how team members are motivated to engage in knowledge-sharing behaviors. Practical implications – The model may be used for knowledge management and to understand ineffectiveness in teams. It also may assist in human resource functions including selecting and training team members for knowledge-intensive positions. Social implications – Epistemology affects collaborative relationships. Collaborations and associated knowledge-sharing behaviors among work team members who design and implement products for public use are imperative toward developing products free from health and safety issues. Originality/value – This paper provides a model for understanding and developing motivation to engage in individual knowledge-sharing behaviors among work team members, which is considered critical toward an organization’s competitive advantage.

From Gods To Gamers: The Manifestation of the Avatar Throughout Religious History and Postmodern Culture

When James Cameron’s epic film, Avatar, was released in 2009, it was the highest-grossing film of all time. Yet how many people who watched it were aware of the multifaceted Hindu doctrine underlying the concept of the avatara? This paper traces the avatar from the Vedic age to the present day, examining how it has persisted and adapted for over three thousand years. First the complex history of the Hindu avatara is examined through Hindu religious literature, mythology, and hagiography. This is followed by a deeper exploration of the theology of the avatar as a “hierophany”, or divine manifestation, through three progressively deepening dimensions of Hindu belief—dharma, bhakti, and moksha. The final chapter concludes with a glimpse of the avatar concept in the postmodern world, now stripped of its religious context and emerging as a simulacrum of selfhood in the digital age. The question is asked whether the secularization of the avatar is a simple case of cultural appropriation, or what possibilities for authenticity remain as we explore the recoding of religious idioms in popular culture.

Development of Thai University Students’ Beliefs about Language Learning: A Longitudinal Study

Learners’ beliefs about language learning are considered very important, yet their developmental nature still remains mostly unexplored. The purpose was to examine how Thai students change their beliefs about language learning after learning the Japanese language in an 11-week elementary-level course. The study also explored the relationships between the learners’ beliefs and their achievements in language learning. Undergraduate students in a Thai university ( N = 73) completed a modified version of Beliefs About Language Learning Inventory (BALLI) developed by Horwitz at two different times; one before taking the Japanese language course (pre-course) and another after having completed the course (post-course). A significant increase at the dimensional level was identified in one of the five conceptual belief dimensions, while changes were also observed in another factor yet it was not statistically significant. Pearson product-moment correlations between the belief factorial mean scores and the participants’ Japanese and English achievement levels were not very strong, and most of them were not statistically significant. It appeared that the students’ experience of studying the Japanese language were related to the change of their beliefs about language learning in some factors, implying the beliefs’ mixed and complicated nature: some categories of the beliefs are modifiable and developed through learning, while others stable and unchangeable.

The relationship between illness perceptions and cardiac misconceptions after Myocardial Infarction

Research about cardiac misconceptions has focused on identifying the most common erroneous beliefs and understanding their impact on patients’ outcomes. However, less is known about the underlying structure of cardiac misconceptions and how they relate to other belief dimensions. The aims of the present study were: (a) to characterize illness perceptions and cardiac misconceptions in a sample of Myocardial Infarction (MI) patients; (b) to analyse the structure of an experimental Portuguese version of the York Cardiac Beliefs Questionnaire (YCBQ); and (c) to examine whether illness perceptions are likely to influence cardiac misconceptions. This cross-sectional study included 127 first-MI patients from both sexes, aged up to 70 years old. Confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modelling were performed with AMOS. The main results showed that a two-dimension (stress avoidance and exercise avoidance) version of the YCBQ offered the best fit to the data. A significant impact of psychological attributions was observed on cardiac misconceptions, as well as a moderate impact of emotional response explaining 26% of the variance. Although exploratory, this study gives a significant contribution to research in this field, as clarification on the different concepts and the way they relate is needed. Our findings suggest that further investigation into the concepts of cardiac knowledge and cardiac misconceptions may have an important role in understanding health behaviours in the context of heart disease.

Illness beliefs of Chinese American immigrants with major depressive disorder in a primary care setting

Underutilization of mental health services in the U.S. is compounded among racial/ethnic minorities, especially Chinese Americans. Culturally based illness beliefs influence help-seeking behavior and may provide insights into strategies for increasing utilization rates among vulnerable populations. This is the first large descriptive study of depressed Chinese American immigrant patients’ illness beliefs using a standardized instrument. 190 depressed Chinese immigrants seeking primary care at South Cove Community Health Center completed the Explanatory Model Interview Catalogue, which probes different dimensions of illness beliefs: chief complaint, labeling of illness, stigma perception, causal attributions, and help-seeking patterns. Responses were sorted into categories by independent raters and results compared to an earlier study at the same site and using the same instrument. Contrary to prior findings that depressed Chinese individuals tend to present with primarily somatic symptoms, subjects were more likely to report chief complaints and illness labels related to depressed mood than physical symptoms. Nearly half reported they would conceal the name of their problem from others. Mean stigma levels were significantly higher than in the previous study. Most subjects identified psychological stress as the most likely cause of their problem. Chinese immigrants’ illness beliefs were notable for psychological explanations regarding their symptoms, possibly reflecting increased acceptance of Western biomedical frameworks, in accordance with recent research. However, reported stigma regarding these symptoms also increased. As Asian American immigrant populations increasingly accept psychological models of depression, stigma may become an increasingly important target for addressing disparities in mental health service utilization.

Delving Deeper Into the Construct of Preservice Teacher Beliefs About Reading Instruction for Students With Disabilities

The purpose of this study was to complete an in-depth examination of the construct of teacher beliefs by investigating preservice teachers’ beliefs about reading instruction for students with disabilities. Interview and artifact data were collected for 11 preservice teachers during a 10-month period. Dimensions of beliefs investigated were expressed beliefs and beliefs-in-use, the stability of beliefs, and sources of beliefs. Results indicate that preservice teachers’ beliefs systems are complex, made up of enduring, deeply rooted expressed beliefs as well as beliefs-in-use that are highly dependent on discipline-specific working knowledge. These beliefs are not the same in how they are formed or sustained; thus, an implication of this study’s findings is that researchers and teacher educators be more specific and explicit when describing studies of preservice teacher beliefs. Additional implications for future research and practice regarding the relationship between teacher beliefs and teacher education are provided.

Faculty of Education Students’ Resistance Behaviors and Self-efficacy Perceptions to Teaching and Learning Processes

The purpose of this study is to determine whether there was a significant difference between teacher candidates’ academic self-efficacy beliefs and the resistance behaviors they have developed towards the teaching and learning process. This research which employed relational screening model was undertaken on the study platform composed of 248 teacher candidates attending Abant Izzet Baysal University Faculty of Education in 2012-2013 academic year. Research results show that dimension on teacher candidates’ self-efficacy indicated “agreement”, on the views of the Resistance Scale of the students in Faculty of Education. The scale showed a “complete disagreement”, on their personal views regarding the instructors and their professional qualities as well as peer relations displayed in a “medium level of agreement” and dimension of beliefs which are related to the future benefits of education indicated “agreement”. In terms of resistance behaviors in class, significant differences were observed in the department variable on the views of the instructors’ professional qualities when teaching type and department variables-personal variables and its relationship with academic self-efficacy-. All of these were thoroughly investigated. Also, a negative and low level relationship was identified between teacher candidates’ selfefficacy and resistance behaviors in class as well as positive and low level relationship between beliefs on future benefits of education and self-efficacy levels.

Attitude Toward Entrepreneurship: Structure, Prediction from Behavioral Beliefs, and Relation to Entrepreneurial Intention

The present research investigated the associations among the dimensions of behavioral beliefs, attitude toward entrepreneurship, and entrepreneurial intention. Using a structural equation modeling approach with a sample of 227 Greek tertiary education students (114 males, 113 females), support is provided that entrepreneurial outcomes, viewed as rewards, are distinguished into intrinsic (intangible/psychological/nonpecuniary) and extrinsic (tangible/physical/pecuniary). Our results show further that attitude toward entrepreneurship contains three separable components, one being instrumental or cognitive in nature, the other being experiential or affective, and the third representing opportunity costs, that is, the personal and financial sacrifices one is willing to incur for the sake of the entrepreneurial venture. Concerning intention for entrepreneurship, our findings support a two-factor structure that represents commitment to an entrepreneurial career and nascent entrepreneurship. Evidence is also found for the Fishbein and Ajzen’s expectancy-value model of attitudes: that attitude toward entrepreneurship is predicted by the expectation that entrepreneurship will be followed by a given outcome, as well as the value that the individual assigns to that outcome. Moreover, our results reveal that the intrinsic rewards of entrepreneurship are stronger predictors of entrepreneurial attitude than extrinsic rewards and that the dimensions of attitude toward entrepreneurship exert a differential impact on entrepreneurial intention, with affective attitude appearing to be more strongly related to intention than instrumental attitude.

Transracially adoptive parents' color-blind attitudes and views toward socialization: Cross-racial friendships as a moderator.

This study examined the moderating role of transracially adoptive parents' cross-racial friendships in the relationship between their color-blind attitudes and views toward cultural and racial socialization. Using hierarchical multiple regression analyses and the Johnson-Neyman technique, it was hypothesized that parents' color-blind attitudes would significantly account for 3 different dimensions of socialization beliefs (i.e., prejudice awareness, ethnic pride, and egalitarian socialization) and that self-reported cross-racial friendships would moderate the effects of color-blind attitudes. Results suggest that having several cross-racial friendships minimized the effects of participants' color-blind attitudes on their ethnic pride and egalitarian socialization beliefs, whereas having few cross-racial friendships enhanced the effects of color-blind attitudes on both socialization variables. The importance of transracially adoptive families creating diverse and multiracial social networks is discussed.

Relationships Among Social Dominance Orientation, Social Axioms, and Values

We adopted 2 cross-culturally validated instruments, developed for the measurement of human values (Schwartz's value model) and generalized beliefs (Leung and Bond's social axioms model), to examine their relationships with the perceptions of legitimacy, permeability, and social dominance orientation (SDO) in a group of 383 Turkish university students. The results showed that the students' perceptions of legitimacy were positively related to their conservation values and the religiosity belief dimension, and negatively related to openness to change and self-transcendence values. We also found that the permeability scores were positively correlated with conservation values and religiosity beliefs, and negatively correlated with openness to change, self-enhancement values, and social cynicism beliefs. Regression analysis results revealed that generalized beliefs (social axioms) and SDO were more effective than values in predicting the legitimacy scores of participants who saw boundaries as legitimate and permeable. This pattern was reversed for participants who regarded the boundaries as illegitimate and impermeable.