Psychological type and religious orientation : do introverts and extraverts go to church for different reasons?

This study set out to profile an Anglican congregation in the south of England in terms of religious orientation, assessed by the New Indices of Religious Orientation, and in terms of psychological type, assessed by the Francis Psychological Type Scales, in order to test the hypothesis that motivation for church attendance (religious orientation) is related to personality (psychological type). The data demonstrated that this congregation (N = 65) displayed clear preferences for judging (72%) over perceiving (28%) and for sensing (62%) over intuition (39%), slight preference for extraversion (54%) over introversion (46%) and a fairly close balance between feeling (51%) and thinking (49%), and included attenders who reflected all three religious orientations: intrinsic, extrinsic, and quest. Moreover, extraverts recorded significantly higher scores than introverts on the measure of extrinsic religiosity, while introverts recorded significantly higher scores than extraverts on the measure of intrinsic religiosity, demonstrating a link between psychological type and religious orientation

Immigration and the EU Referendum: claims from both campaigns require deeper analysis

Laura Robbins-Wright examines how immigration emerged as one of the key issues in the EU Referendum debate and argues that some of the claims from both the Leave and Remain campaigns don’t stand up to scrutiny

Adolescent television viewing and belief in vampires

A total of 1133 13-15-year-old pupils in six secondary schools in South Wales were invited to complete questions concerning vampire belief and amount of television watching. The data demonstrate that belief in vampires was positively associated with higher levels of television watching

How homonegative is the typical Anglican congregation? : applying the Robbins-Murray Religious Homonegative Orientation Scale (RHOS)

This paper set out to assess and profile attitudes toward homosexuality within one typical Anglican congregation. The majority of attendees (n=65, 42% men and 58% women) completed the Robbins-Murray Religious Homonegative Orientation Scale (an instrument embracing the following views on homosexuality: theological aspects, normativity, moral judgement, legal proscription, and affective response), together with indices concerned with demographic factors, religious factors and personality factors. Overall, the data demonstrated that the majority of churchgoers did not espouse a negative view of homosexuality. More proscriptive attitudes were associated with being male, with being older, with regular attendance, and with being more conservative. Individual differences in personality, however, were not significant predictors of views on homosexuality

Guaging Aging: Mapping the Gaps Between Expert and Public Understandings of Aging in America

This report lays the groundwork for a larger effort to develop a new, evidence-based narrative around the process of aging in our country and the needs and contributions of older adults. By comparing experts' views to those of the general public, the report details a set of communications challenges to elevating public support for policies and programs that promote the well-being of older adults. Key among these issues is the public's view of aging as a decidedly negative and deterministic process, as well as its overall fatalism about our collective ability to find solutions to the challenges of an aging population

Unlocking the Reuse Revolution for Fashion: A Canadian Case Study

This research aims to explore the potential of clothing reuse as a stepping stone towards a more circular economy for fashion. A systems approach to problem finding, framing, and solving is applied to explore how we might increase fashion reuse behaviours amongst consumers and industry alike. This research includes an analysis of the key barriers that prevent higher rates of participation in fashion reuse despite the potential economic, environmental, and social benefits of doing so (Part 2), and identifies areas of opportunity to focus innovation (Part 3). Research methodology included more than 30 one-on-one consumer interviews, 20 interviews with industry professionals along the fashion value chain, and an extensive environmental scan with a particular focus on the Canadian market. While this research aims to be accessible for all, the intended audience for this paper includes industry professionals, individual consumers, and regulators with the desire or agency to create meaningful change to the current fashion system in Canada and beyond. This study identified a variety of psychological and physical barriers preventing reuse adoption. For consumers, this is primarily a self-regulation challenge, enabled by our biological design and a cultural environment that has been purposefully constructed to exploit consumer behaviour for profit. This is further reinforced by a deep stigma towards used fashions within a culture that values newness and convenience above quality and longevity. For industry, fast fashion business models challenge both the economics and practicality of reuse, while lack of regulation and barriers to scale reuse models enable the status quo to persist. An analysis of these barriers suggests several points of leverage to focus resources and efforts for innovation to drive increased participation in fashion reuse. Emergent examples from fashion reuse are presented and discussed to inspire action in four key opportunity areas for innovation including: (1) destigmatizing used clothing; (2) addressing our culture of accumulation and disposal; (3) increasing the attractiveness of reuse for consumers; and (4) motivating increased industry participation. Clothing reuse may not be the sole solution to the global fashion industry’s long-term sustainability challenges but it is a critical step along the path to creating a more circular and sustainable economy in which fashion can flourish and provides a mechanism for changing the way we think about the true cost, and potential value, of our clothing. While this research sheds light on many of the challenges and innovation opportunities that exist for clothing reuse on the horizon, turning insight into action is a key next step for further exploration

Regional Climate Trends and Scenarios for the U.S. National Climate Assessment Part 4. Climate of the U.S. Great Plains

This document is one of series of regional climate descriptions designed to provide input that can be used in the development of the National Climate Assessment (NCA). As part of a sustained assessment approach, it is intended that these documents will be updated as new and well-vetted model results are available and as new climate scenario needs become clear. It is also hoped that these documents (and associated data and resources) are of direct benefit to decision makers and communities seeking to use this information in developing adaptation plans. There are nine reports in this series, one each for eight regions defined by the NCA, and one for the contiguous U.S. The eight NCA regions are the Northeast, Southeast, Midwest, Great Plains, Northwest, Southwest, Alaska, and Hawai‘i/Pacific Islands. These documents include a description of the observed historical climate conditions for each region and a set of climate scenarios as plausible futures – these components are described in more detail below. While the datasets and simulations in these regional climate documents are not, by themselves, new, (they have been previously published in various sources), these documents represent a more complete and targeted synthesis of historical and plausible future climate conditions around the specific regions of the NCA. There are two components of these descriptions. One component is a description of the historical climate conditions in the region. The other component is a description of the climate conditions associated with two future pathways of greenhouse gas emissions

Database Review: SAO/NASA Astrophysics Data System

Laura Pope Robbins is an advisor for The Charleston Advisor, and the review below is included in Scholarly Commons with the permission of the publisher. The Astrophysics Data System (ADS) is the premier Open Access research database for astronomy and astrophysics containing over 13 million bibliographic records. These records include journal articles, books, conference proceedings, historical observatory bulletins, and other gray literature. An exceptional feature of ADS is the visualizations it creates, showing author networks, overlapping citations, and frequently occurring terminology giving researchers new ways to explore the literature. It is a unique resource that is as easy for a novice to search as it is for skilled researchers to create precise search queries

Product Review: Mendeley or Zotero: Which Should the Mobile Researcher Use?

Laura Pope Robbins is an advisor for The Charleston Advisor, and the comparative review below is included in Scholarly Commons with the permission of the publisher. Today’s bibliographic managers provide cloud storage so that papers can be attached to citations and syncing services, in order for papers and citations to be available in multiple mediums. Mendeley and Zotero are two services that offer online storage of papers and citations, desktop applications, and tablet integration. Mendeley has an iPad application and an open API so that developers can create apps for Android tablets. Zotero is an open-source project that encourages developers to create both iPad and Android apps. Both suites can be integrated with word processing software for accurate in-text and bibliographic entries, provide full-text indexing of PDF documents, and can attach notes to citations. Choosing between them depends upon what features a mobile researcher would need and use

Product Review: Knimbus: Free Personal Edition

Laura Pope Robbins is an advisor for The Charleston Advisor, and the review below is included in Scholarly Commons with the permission of the publisher. Knimbus is both a search engine and a collaborative platform for scientists to find the information they need and connect them with other researchers in their field. As a search engine it provides a federated search of 32 Open Access resources and connects the researcher to the full text. As a collaborative platform, it provides a way for scientists to upload their documents and share them with their colleagues. Knimbus is an enterprising project that has excellent potential. Unfortunately, the searching is not as straightforward as it could be within the free version of the product and can provide irrelevant results. It shares the same problems as any federated search, but adds a few new ones with its search language