Religious Stereotypes Research Articles

The influence of the hijab (Islamic head-cover) on perceptions of women's attractiveness and intelligence

This study examined the effects of wearing the hijab, or Islamic headwear, on men's perceptions of women's attractiveness and intelligence. A total of 57 non-Muslim men and 41 Muslim men rated a series of images of women, half of whom were unveiled and half of whom wore the hijab. For attractiveness and intelligence ratings, a mixed analysis of variance showed a significant effect of hijab status, with women wearing the hijab being rated more negatively than unveiled women. For attractiveness ratings, there was no significant effect of participant religion, although non-Muslim men rated unveiled women significantly higher than veiled women. For intelligence ratings, non-Muslim men provided significantly higher ratings than Muslim men for both conditions. In addition, Muslim men's ratings of the attractiveness and intelligence of women wearing the hijab was positively correlated with self-reported religiosity. These results are discussed in relation to religious stereotyping within increasingly multi-cultural societies.

Ethno-religious stereotypes and their functioning in Ukrainian society

Religious life in all eras is accompanied not only by real facts, but also by their subjective perception. It is fixed not so much reality as the imagination of it. Among the common beliefs, a special place belongs to stereotypes, which, on the one hand, systematize and generalize ideas about the world, helping people to adequately perceive and interpret being, and on the other - preserving these ideas, which sometimes prevents people from entering new life. History has given rise to many religious stereotypes, by virtue of which the constitution and preservation of ethnic groups, nations, religious communities, and confessions took place. However, uncontrolled domination, and especially the use of these stereotypes in the theory and practice of social and individual existence, led to complications in the functioning of ethno-religious communities, to their struggle, even destruction, resulting in the disappearance of some and other ethnicities, nations, religions. and churches. The reality of the society in which we live is on

Religious Stereotyping and Voter Support for Evangelical Candidates

While much important research exists on the topic of religion and politics, very little exists on candidate religious affiliation and its potential effect on voters' behavior. This article addresses the issue of candidate religion from the point of view that it acts as an information cue for voters in elections through trait and belief stereotypes. Using a case study of hypothetical evangelical Christian candidates and an original experimental data set, this analysis demonstrates that voters stereotype evangelicals as more conservative than other candidates, as well as more competent and trustworthy, all else equal. These stereotypes subsequently play a significant role in voters' choices of whom to support.

Religious Experience and Women Leadership in Yoruba (Nigeria) Islam: A Case Study of Alhaja Sheidat Mujidat Adeoye, Founder and Leader of the Fadilullah Muslim Mission, Osogbo, Nigeria.

This paper examines the status and role of women in Nigerian Islam, with the case study of Alhaja Sheidat Mujidat Adeoye, the founder and leader of the Fadillullah Muslim Mission, Osogbo, Nigeria. It discusses religious experience of Sheidat Mujidat Adeoye which gave an impetus to the founding of her movement as this has not only changed the nature and form of Nigerian Islam, but it has also introduced a new expression into the tradition, thus causing an alteration in religious stereotypes within a religiously pluralistic community. The study adopts a multi-disciplinary approach of anthropology, phenomenology and hermeneutics. The significance of this study lies in the tremendous and imposing prominence and huge patronage of Sheidat Adeoye, both by the people of Osogbo and the numerous visitors from several parts of Nigeria. This paper examines the uniqueness of the practices of Adeoye vis-à-vis the religious experience that gave birth to her movement. It investigates her activities and practices, her acceptance within the Muslim religious and Yoruba cultural patriarchal community, and public responses to her movement. The paper assesses the relevance of the movement as an Islamic group in religio-cultural and inter-religious contexts. Gender and Behaviour Vol. 2 2004:117-140

The Life of the Mind in Old English Poetry (review)

200 Reviews Parergon 20.2 (2003) Austen attempts to counteract the cultural stereotype of the voracious and threatening widow in order to preserve her social rank and personal autonomy. Like Carey and Trapnel, Austen purposely denies her agency and figures herself as helpless in order to forge a permissible poetic voice with which to defend and enhance her position as a woman without a male protector. Most interesting about the analysis of ‘Book M’, however, is Hammons’s focus upon the interplay between gender and social class, and, specifically, upon Austen’s poem ‘On the Situation of Highbury’, ascribed here to the country house poem tradition. Examining the poem alongside country house poems by Jonson, Carew, and Lanyer, Hammons considers its departures from generic convention as specific to Austen’s self-presentation as a virtuous but independently wealthy widow. As a female poet, her relationship with the estate defied convention on numerous levels. Reading the poem as a social and literary negotiation of this relationship, Hammons suggests the complexity of Austen’s position as an independent widow authoring the worthiness of an estate which she hoped to own. In resisting cultural and religious stereotypes of what constituted acceptable behaviour for a woman, Austen, like Carey and Trapnel, appropriated the essentially male traditions of lyric poetry and reworked them from a feminine perspective. Though this study is valuable simply because it brings to light additional texts relevant to the study of Early Modern women writers, it also examines complex relationships between the social role of the writer and the text as vehicle for cultural comment and change. Poetic Resistance will appeal, therefore , not only to scholars of Early Modern women’s writing, but also to anyone interested in the intersection between social and literary culture, and in the strategic self-presentation of poets during this turbulent period of English history. Alison V. Scott English Department Macquarie University Harbus, Antonina, The Life of the Mind in Old English Poetry (Costerus New Series 143), Amsterdam/New York, Rodopi, 2002; paper; pp. ix, 220; RRP US$54.00, EUR45.00; ISBN 9042008148. Old English studies have changed over the last few decades from a mainly philological perspective to a more subtle understanding of the complexity of Reviews 201 Parergon 20.2 (2003) the society which produced such a comparatively large extant corpus. Adding to an awareness of the sophistication of the Anglo-Saxon writers, and of their uniqueness, is the new volume by Antonina Harbus which draws attention to the way Old English poetry emphasised and privileged the life of the mind. This is an important work and complements the increased interest over the last decade in how earlier cultures viewed memory, mind and psyche. Harbus claims two aims to her book: ‘to investigate the emphasis on the mind in the poetic traditions of Anglo-Saxon England, and to outline the model of the mind on which this poetic discourse was structured’ (p. 13). The first claim is fully realised as she convincingly shows how the poets repeatedly used words associated with the mind (mod, gemynd, hyge, sefa, breostsefa etc). In the hagiographical tradition, where Latin and European counterparts exist, Harbus identifies how the Old English texts added references to mind and thought which were not present in the original. The identification of this uniqueness of perception of the mind as the locus of personality and action will surely stimulate more research into the comparative European traditions of mind. The second aim of the book is ambitious; the paucity of the material, and the medieval refusal to classify terminology in a manner appropriate to the twenty-first century, must inevitably lead to some speculation rather than a definitive taxonomy of psychological terms. Nevertheless, Harbus draws together evidence to show that the Anglo-Saxon writers described the mind as ‘an entity participating in the control of the self in a bipartisan manner. This dual and inherently fraught basis of agency, individual identity and consciousness is presented as a dynamic shaper of personal development’ (p. 186). Emotions occur in the mind, and the mind is also ‘the chief mechanism of an individual’s commerce with the divine’ (p. 187). Importantly, Harbus eschews the simplistic definition of...

Pop Goes the Spiritual

Pop Goes the Spiritual

The bridge betrayed: religion and genocide in Bosnia

The recent atrocities in Bosnia-Herzegovina have stunned people throughout the world. With Holocaust memories still painfully vivid, a question haunts us: how is this savagery possible? Michael A. Sells answers by demonstrating that the Bosnian conflict is not simply a civil war or a feud of age-old adversaries. It is, he says, a systematic campaign of genocide and a Christian holy war spurred by religious mythologies. This passionate yet reasoned book examines how religious stereotyping--in popular and official discourse - has fueled Serbian and Croatian ethnic hatreds. Sells, who is himself Serbian American, traces the cultural logic of genocide to the manipulation by Serb nationalists of the symbolism of Christ's death, in which Muslims are 'Christ-killers' and Judases who must be mercilessly destroyed. He shows how 'Christoslavic' religious nationalism became a central part of Croat and Serbian politics, pointing out that intellectuals and clergy were key instruments in assimilating extreme religious and political ideas. Sells also elucidates the ways that Western policy makers have rewarded the perpetrators of the genocide and punished the victims. He concludes with a discussion of how the multireligious nature of Bosnian society has been a bridge between Christendom and Islam, symbolized by the now-destroyed bridge at Mostar. Drawing on historical documents, unpublished United Nations reports, articles from Serbian and Bosnian media, personal contacts in the region, and Internet postings, Sells reveals the central role played by religious mythology in the Bosnian tragedy. In addition, he makes clear how much is at stake for the entire world in the struggle to preserve Bosnia's existence as a multireligious society.

Flannery O'Connor: new perspectives

These ten essays, seven of which are previously unpublished, reflect the broadening of critical approaches to Flannery O'Connor's work over the past decade. The essays offer both new directions for, and new insights into, reading O'Connor's fiction. Some essays probe issues that, until recently, had been ignored. Others reshape long-standing debates in light of new critical insights from gender studies, rhetorical theory, dialogism, and psychoanalysis. Topics discussed include O'Connor's early stories, her canonical status, the phenomenon of doubling, the feminist undertones of her stories' grotesqueries, and her self-denial in life and art. Commentary on O'Connor has most often centered on her regional realism and the poetics of her Catholicism. By regarding O'Connor as a major American writer and focusing on the variety of critical approaches that might be taken to her work, these essays dispel the earlier geographic and religious stereotypes and point out new avenues of study.

Religiosity as deviance: Negative religious bias in and misuse of the DSM‐III

The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (3rd ed., American Psychiatric Association, 1980) and more recently the third edition revised (DSM‐III and DSM‐III‐R, respectively) serve as the “Bible” for the psychiatric community, which includes psychological counselors, marriage counselors, and social workers as well as psychiatrists. These clinical professionals define mental disorders in the general population using DSM‐III categories. This diagnostic tool has been used to “medicalize” participation in certain types of religious groups and experiences, because both versions include negative religious stereotyping and ambivalence toward religion. That observation is apparent in the glossary of technical terms and especially in the application of some diagnostic categories to certain types of religious participation. This article argues that the reliability and validity of the DSM‐III can be improved by eliminating negative religious examples, resulting in a more objective diagnostic instrumen...

The Gifts of Culture and of Eloquence: An Open Letter to Michael J. Mahoney in Reply to His Article, “Scientific Psychology and Radical Behaviorism”

In what seems to be a response to a paper by Skinner (1987), Mahoney (1989) provides evidence of unfamiliarity with and intellectual intolerance toward radical behaviorism by presenting a critique of it that includes a variety of improper and counterfactual attributions. For example, he argues that radical behaviorism is Cartesian rather than Baconian when the historical record shows the opposite, that it is fundamentally associationist when in fact it is selectionist, and that its philosophy of science is essentially that of operationalism and logical positivism when instead it moved on to other criteria decades ago. The details of Mahoney's history are sometimes flawed and sometimes unsubstantiated, as when he provides a distorted account of the origins of the Association for Behavior Analysis or when he makes undocumented claims about the banning of books. On examination, many of his arguments are couched in stylistic terms that share their rhetorical features with racial, ethnic, and religious stereotyping.

Youth and religion in Hungary

The notion that young people have become more interested in religious faith and in religious matters in general has gained ground amongst public and scholars alike. I Their opinions bolstered by sociological indicators, church policy-makers 2 and leaders of youth organisations 3 agree that this is the case. Hard empirical facts, however, are rather scanty. Social scientists have not yet investigated several aspects of attitudes towards religion. Whatever data we have, may, therefore, serve only as a starting point far from giving satisfactory answers to the question. The lack of proven facts coupled with the importance of this issue has induced the Public Opinion Research Group attached to the Central Committee of the Communist Youth League to set up an independent investigation into the phenomenon. The basic questions of this inquiry are: 1. What aspects or elements of religion play any part in the life of young people, and what are the manifestations of these? 2. What differences can be discovered among young people of various social groupings in their attitudes to religious matters? Religious feeelings, and attitudes towards religion, are very complex ind~ed. Our inquiry over and above factors of background and environment concentrated attention on the following: interest in religion; knowledge of religious matters; beliefs; religious -practices; religion and ideology; religious stereotypes. An investigation of relationships between various dimensions of religious feeling and the

Jews and Jewesses in victorian fiction: From religious stereotype to ethnic hazard

Jewish stereotypes in English fiction and drama changed markedly during the nineteenth century. Negative images grounded in religious prejudice were superseded by images based on the notion of Jews as a racial hazard. In marriages between Jew and non‐Jew, the Jew was seen as a polluting element.

Religious Stereotypes

Religious Stereotypes

Group Images: Racial, Ethnic, and Religious Stereotyping.

Group Images: Racial, Ethnic, and Religious Stereotyping.