Worldview Conflict Research Articles

Social and economic ideologies differentially predict prejudice across the political spectrum, but social issues are most divisive.

Liberals and conservatives both express prejudice toward ideologically dissimilar others (Brandt et al., 2014). Previous work on ideological prejudice did not take advantage of evidence showing that ideology is multidimensional, with social and economic ideologies representing related but separable belief systems. In 5 studies (total N = 4912), we test 3 competing hypotheses of a multidimensional account of ideological prejudice. The dimension-specific symmetry hypothesis predicts that social and economic ideologies differentially predict prejudice against targets who are perceived to vary on the social and economic political dimensions, respectively. The social primacy hypothesis predicts that such ideological worldview conflict is experienced more strongly along the social than economic dimension. The social-specific asymmetry hypothesis predicts that social conservatives will be more prejudiced than social liberals, with no specific hypotheses for the economic dimension. Using multiple target groups, multiple prejudice measures (e.g., global evaluations, behavior), and multiple social and economic ideology measures (self-placement, issue positions), we found relatively consistent support for the dimension-specific symmetry and social primacy hypotheses, and no support for the social-specific asymmetry hypothesis. These results suggest that worldview conflict and negative intergroup attitudes and behaviors are dimension-specific, but that the social dimension appears to inspire more political conflict than the economic dimension. (PsycINFO Database Record

Worldview and resource development conflict: an analytical approach

Worldview and resource development conflict: an analytical approach

Bounded openness: The effect of openness to experience on intolerance is moderated by target group conventionality.

Openness to experience is consistently associated with tolerance. We suggest that tests of the association between openness to experience and tolerance have heretofore been incomplete because they have primarily focused on prejudice toward unconventional target groups. We test (a) the individual difference perspective, which predicts that because people who are high in openness are more open to diverse and dissimilar people and ideas, they will express more tolerance than people who are low in openness and (b) the worldview conflict perspective, which predicts that people high and low in openness will both be intolerant toward those with different worldviews. Four studies, using both conventional and unconventional target groups, find support for an integrative perspective. People high in openness do appear more tolerant of diverse worldviews compared with people low in openness; however, at the same time, people both high and low in openness are more intolerant of groups whose worldviews conflict with their own. These findings highlight the need to consider how individual difference variables and features of the target groups may interact in important ways to influence the expression of prejudice.

Religious Features of Curanderismo Training and Practice

The purpose of this study is to investigate religious features of curanderismo, specifically the role of ostensibly Roman Catholic beliefs and practices in the training and work of curandero/as. The integration of religious beliefs and practices within the rituals of curanderismo and how this potential clash of worldviews negatively and positively impacts clients and practitioners are examined. Interviews were conducted with practicing curandero/as and clients who had sought their services. Factors observed to have potential to facilitate healing include psychological reassurance gained through incorporating familiar religious beliefs and paraphernalia and the therapeutic healing property of features of curanderismo practice, such as herbs used in many remedies. Negative effects may result from feelings of distrust, fear, and embarrassment engendered by seeking care from a curandero/a. Future research targeting the complexities of the relationship between Roman Catholicism and curanderismo might focus specifically on how negotiating this conflict of worldviews may affect health.

Resistance to evolutionary psychology as a continuation of conflicts over scientific integration

The history of scientific progress is marked by a process of conceptual integration: Different fields of inquiry become intertwined and interconsistent as they grow. Evolutionary psychology is a continuation of this process and, like previous integrations, has generated substantial resistance from different social and political circles. Looking into the future, we can outline the nature of the resistance from socio-political conservative and socio-political progressive forces. Such worldview conflicts can be particularly contentious on topics related to human behavior and human nature, as they tend to challenge the central tenants of these conflicting worldviews. There is also, however, a set of future conditions that would promote evolutionary psychology and the conceptual integration of behavioral science disciplines. These conditions include a strong understanding and value placed on scientific conceptual integration as well as support by science education that emphasizes critical thinking and inquiry. Evolutionary psychology would also be aided by hard protections (e.g., laws and regulations) against political interference in science. In addition to typical resistance to conceptual integrations, the success of evolutionary psychology depends on overcoming a number of counterintuitive aspects of how evolution by natural selection works. These include the difficulty of visualizing the evolutionary process, the long time scales involved in the evolution of complex adaptations, the seductiveness of mind/body dualism, and the human desire for immediate explanations of all phenomena.

The changing face of American compassion: ethnicity, religion, and worldview conflicts

When Barack Obama announced his support for “Faith Based Initiatives” in August 2008 many people were shocked. Others saw it as a political ploy because they regarded the policy as one of the Bush Administration’s more unpopular programmes. In fact, the idea of “Faith Based Initiatives” was first proposed during the Clinton Presidency with support from such liberals as Senator Joe Liebermann. In this article popular misunderstandings of the role of religion in the USA will be discussed to show that the issue is far more complex than the media and a host of critical authors want us to believe and that the attack on “Faith Based Initiatives” has far-reaching implications for the relationship between Christianity and politics in both America and the rest of the world. It also raises issues about ethnicity, religion and the conflict of worldviews.

Athens versus Jerusalem: a source of left-right conflict in the history of ideas

The ancient conflict commonly called ‘Athens versus Jerusalem’ was not just about reason versus faith but more importantly was about the idea in ‘Athens’ of a pre-ordered universe versus the idea in ‘Jerusalem’ of the creative spontaneity of God's self-sufficient will. This ancient intercultural contest became modernized and secularized as the idea of spontaneous creativity increasingly came to be seen as a human power. Meanwhile, the idea of universal order was renewed in the scientific revolution. Today, a legacy of the conflict between ‘Athens’ and ‘Jerusalem’ in its modern form is manifested in the ideological conflict over the ultimate source of lawfulness and goodness. Thus one of the ideological cleavages in the politics of contemporary democracies is on the question, are the rules that govern human life to be discovered or are they to be created by human beings? The left–right metaphor in politics has no inherent meaning but some of its conventional connotations are related to this conflict of worldviews.

Differences in Worldviews between Social Workers and People of Faith

Worldview conflicts between social workers and clients are widely understood to inhibit the provision of client-centered services. One of the most influential theories that has been advanced for understanding conflicting worldviews in contemporary society is Hunter's (1991) epistemologically based distinction between progressive and orthodox worldviews. Based upon Hunter's work, two interrelated hypotheses are examined using nationally representative samples: first, that social workers (n = 145) affirm a progressive worldview and associated value positions and, second, that their value positions differ from those who affirm an orthodox worldview. Both hypotheses were supported. The implications are discussed regarding the academic literature, education, and service provision.

Learning lessons from Waco: when the parties bring their gods to the negotiation table

This intensive case study derives lessons for negotiation theory, research, and practice from the disaster. The siege at simply refuses to disappear. Recently uncovered evidence, an ongoing civil suit, and the Danforth investigation fuel public interest and controversy. Heated debates about what really happened in Waco are a recurring public drama. Yet, little or no attention has been given to the work of the negotiator who talked with the Branch Davidians. This important book utilizes largely unexplored sources of data to explain why fifty-one days of negotiations by federal officials failed to get Branch Davidians to exit the compound, as desired. Learning Lessons from applies a theory of worldview conflict to the more than 12,000 pages of negotiation transcripts from Waco. Through perceptive analysis of the situation, Jayne Seminare Docherty offers a fresh perspective on the activities of law enforcement agents. She shows how the conflict resulted from a collision of two distinct worldviews - the FBI's and the Davidians' - and their divergent notions of reality. By exploring the failures of the negotiations, she also urges a better understanding of encounters between rising religious movements and dominant social institutions. Finally, the resulting model is applicable to other conflict resolution processes such as mediation and facilitated problem solving.

Communicating Identity and the Challenge of Ex Corde Ecclesiae

Arguing that the current challenge in Catholic higher education to implement the norms of Ex Corde Ecclesiae is largely a conflict of different world views, the author describes three competing visions of Church”pistic, charismatic, and mystical”and offers three “lenses” to clarify each vision: functional, interpretive, and post-modern. A textual analysis of Ex Corde Ecclesiae and the 1993 and 1999 drafts of ordinances of the National Catholic Conference of Bishops (NCCB) reveals a world view at odds with most Catholic universities.

Voices from the bridge: Worldview conflicts of Kickapoo students of science

The purpose of this study was to compare the worldview of Native American students of the Traditional Kickapoo Band with the worldview encountered in the science classroom. The qualitative study investigated the worldview expressed in science instruction by conducting periodic observations in two classrooms over an 18-month period, teacher interviews, and text evaluations. StudentsO worldviews were investigated during individual and group interviews, classroom observations, science activities, and social interaction. Twenty-eight Kickapoo students, two teachers, and eight nonteaching members of the community participated in the study. Adult members of the Kickapoo Band were interviewed and asked to reflect on the educational and cultural norms of the students. A variable-oriented analysis revealed differences in epistemology, preferred methods of teaching/learning, values, spatial/temporal orientation, cultural rules for behavior, and perspective of the place of humans in the natural world. The study revealed significant worldview differences, none of which would prevent Kickapoo students from being full participants in the scientific community, but many of which may be preventing them from being successful in the science classroom. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 35: 111–132, 1998.

Child Survival: Anthropological Perspectives on the Treatment and Maltreatment of Children.

Introduction: The Cultural Politics of Child Survival.- I: Population, Fertility, and Child Survival.- Birth Planning in Rural China: A Cultural Account.- Fertility Change, Child Survival, and Child Development: Observations on a Rural Kenyan Community.- Food Taboos and Child Survival: A Case Study from the Coral Sea.- II: Infanticide: Culturally Sanctioned Child Abuse.- Female Infanticide and Child Neglect in Rural North India.- Infanticide Among the Tarahumara of the Mexican Sierra Madre.- III: Social Trauma: The Effects of Poverty, Social Disruption, and Catastrophe on Child Treatment.- Fitness and Survival.- External Pressure/Internal Change: Child Neglect on the Navajo Reservation.- Cry Babies, Culture, and Catastrophe: Infant Temperament Among the Masai.- Culture, Scarcity, and Maternal Thinking: Mother Love and Child Death in Northeast Brazil.- IV: Child Abuse: Deviant And Idiosyncratic Child Maltreatment.- Severe Child Abuse Among the Canadian Inuit.- The Treatment of Children in the Dirty War: Ideology, State Terrorism, and the Abuse of Children in Argentina.- Child Sexual Abuse: Implications from the Cross-Cultural Record.- Preliminary Remarks on a Study of Incest in England.- V: Child Saving: Problems And Dilemmas In Social Intervention.- World-View Conflict and Toddler Malnutrition: Change Agent Dilemmas.- Traditional Medicine as 'Medical Neglect': Dilemmas in the Case Management of a Samoan Teenager with Diabetes.- Child Abuse and the Unconscious in American Popular Culture.- Bureaucracy and the Maltreatment of the Interpretive and Structural Implications.- When Cultural Rights Conflict with the Best Interests of the Child: A View from Inside the Child Welfare System.- List of Contributors.- Index of Subjects.

Pre‐Regulation Research: The Triumph of Policy Analysis

Washington has a way of taking simple, even elegant truths and transmuting them into intellectual mush. In their moment of triumph, ideas are quickly sucked into the maw of the executive branch and never heard from again. When I saw the title of this paper in the conference brochure, I knew two things: first, policy had finally triumphed in domestic agencies; second, its transformation into pre-regulation research indicated that was about to be turned into an endangered species. I want to talk today partly about the triumph of in regulation, but mostly about the danger signals that could threaten its existence-signals that are more serious than unfortunate terminology. I want to do this against a brief historical backdrop of that may help you understand the urgency with which I deliver my message. Policy is the reincarnation, in my view, of the old discipline of political economy. It attempts to amalgamate political science, economics and other disciplines to make the whole more than the sum of the parts. In doing this, it represents the of the Enlightenment tradition that commands us to take hold of our futures and mould them by our reason. It is not clear, however, that is in an equilibrium situation. The drive for specialization and the conflict of world views that caused the initial split of economics and politics still exists. Americans are also rightly skeptical of the best and the brightest that brought them, among other things, the kill ratios of the Vietnamese war. Politicians, also, are likely to be wary of analysis, inasmuch as the rational-analytical man forswears the bargaining inherent in a political system. While it may currently be good politics to boost impact analysis in regulation as a means to reduce the absolute amount of

Health and human behavior: areas of interest common to the social and medical sciences.

Health and human behavior: areas of interest common to the social and medical sciences.