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This study focused on the glass partition, a term used to describe the challenges that exist in forming and maintaining cross-sex collegial relationships in the workplace. Women may be limited in their ability to benefit from collegial relationships due to the challenges of cross-sex relationships, particularly in a Christian environment. We use the term "stained-glass partition" to describe the effects of gender separation in a Christian university atmosphere, a research focus that has been largely unexamined to date. In this single-institution study, 21 full-time faculty were interviewed regarding their perceptions of cross-sex relationships at work. Data were analyzed using grounded theory procedures to allow major themes to emerge. Results showed that there is a stained-glass partition operating at the university--sometimes created intentionally and partially based on fear--that has a disproportionately negative impact on women faculty. The partition can be mitigated through routine collegial interactions such as committee work and through viewing one another as sacred siblings rather than a sexual "other." Students, faculty, and the university as a whole benefit when the partition is reduced, and the Christian faith commitment that is held in common by community members provides a helpful perspective in moving relationships away from power into agape-love and sibling-type relationships. Implications for practice and suggestions for future research are presented.

The basis of the meaning-making model is that distress results from discrepancies between one's global meaning system and one's situational appraisals of negative life events. This model suggests a preventative function for religion when religious global beliefs inform situational appraisals in ways that minimize distress. Using consensual qualitative research, we evaluated the initial reactions to a cancer diagnosis of 29 Black Christian women. We examined how the women appraised the cancer diagnosis and how this appraisal was related to reported distress. Our results indicated that lower levels of distress were related to believing that God was faithful, while higher levels of distress were related to beliefs in retributive justice and cancer as a death sentence. Lower distress was further related to spiritual surrender, a religious coping practice that combines entrusting the outcome of one's cancer experience to God and actively pursuing treatment. We discuss spiritual surrender as a collaborative religious coping strategy and highlight its importance in informing culturally sensitive psychological interventions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We advance prior work on humility by proposing the trust signaling hypothesis of humility. Five preregistered experiments (N = 3,302), examined whether humble leaders humility would elicit more favorable ratings, greater trust, and generate behavioral intentions toward making financial contributions. Experiment 1 (n = 864) revealed that humble leaders elicited more favorable ratings and intentions to make financial contributions, even when leader competence was low. These interactive effects were mediated by perceived trustworthiness. Experiment 2 (n = 807) replicated these effects and compared for-profit and nonprofit organizations. Experiment 3 (n = 823) clarified these effects and compared domestic and international organizations. Experiment 4 (n = 375), replicated these effects using a more direct leader description. Experiment 5 (n = 433) revealed a boundary condition, wherein likable leaders were viewed as or more favorably than humble leaders. We discuss the central role of trust and the financial appeal of humble leaders. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this consensual qualitative research study, we investigated the role of refugees' Christian faith in meaning‐making coping. High percentages of religiosity in refugee populations support the need to understand the role of religion in their coping processes. Interviews with 20 Christian refugees from 10 African and Asian countries revealed that participants drew heavily from their faith resources to cope with their experiences. Specifically, refugees reported coping practices that included trust in God, prayer, intimacy with God, spiritual surrender, lament, worship, and social support. Although many participants described spiritual struggles, including doubting God, feeling distant from God, and questioning God, most found meaning amid refugee‐related suffering and reported perspective shifts, a deepening of faith, seeing suffering as part of God's plan, experiencing a deepened sense of purpose, and growing in the likeness of Christ. Refugees also reported growth through suffering in the form of gratitude, altruism, testimony, and humility. Clinical implications include encouraging the use of religious resources for meaning‐making and supporting the resolution of spiritual struggles. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Theodicies have been associated with mental health in several studies. However, little research on theodicies has been conducted with people in the midst of significant suffering. Further, religious traditions differ in theodical content and function in easing suffering. We examined associations between theodicies and mental health in people facing significant suffering and the extent to which they are influenced by Christian religious affiliation. In an online US sample of 367 people reporting a significant recent stressor (nearly half of which involved death or illness), Roman Catholics and Protestants differed on only one of six theodicies studied. Moderator analyses found consistent evidence (in 11 of the 18 models) that theodicies predicted stronger associations with mental health for Roman Catholics than for Protestants. Future research is needed to understand why effects of theodicies, which can be protective in times of high stress such as loss or sickness, differ by religious tradition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study assesses individual social attitudes and ideological beliefs regarding systems of power and sexism (i.e., Authoritarianism, Conservatism, Traditionalism, Social Dominance Orientation [SDO], Hostile Sexism [HS], and Benevolent Sexism [BS]) [...]

While religious meaning-making has been extensively studied, emic religious coping remains largely unexplored. This consensual qualitative research study explored Catholic cancer survivors' (N = 22) descriptions of drawing on their religious framework throughout their cancer journeys. Findings revealed distinctive Catholic resources such as the power of blessings, drawing comfort from the saints and sacraments, and "offering up" suffering as a form of spiritual surrender, suggesting the existence of underlying theodicies of divine purpose as well as potential clinical resources. While many participants described spiritual struggles and questions, most found meaning through deepening their faith, helping others, and re-examining their priorities. Exploratory mixed-method analyses suggest that questioning God may promote turning toward faith, while being angry at God is associated with difficulty in doing so. The findings have implications for research, pointing to emic practices that merit further study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper addresses the spiritual discouragement and religious doubt that can arise in the Christian therapist who repeatedly experiences spiritual immaturity and crisis amongst his or her Christian clients. While [...]

Mission statements of Christian institutions of higher education often include the purpose of forming individuals to live out their Christian commitments in larger society. This article presents the case that including theater in Christian higher education prepares students to further God's kingdom in this world after graduation--whether or not they do so through the medium of theater. Specifically, the argument is that training in theater serves two primary and interrelated goals in students' development: cogent bodies, capable of representing God to others through relationships, and self-aware souls, foundational for the development of character. The conclusion offers a case example of a successful theater program at Wheaton College.

Although character formation has always been a central goal of education, efforts to promote character education in schools have, in the last century, always been hampered by an inability to adequately define character. We offer the concept of the flourishing life as the appropriate context for defining and developing character. This concept, which includes a robust understanding of character, has historically prevailed in Western thought. We first recover some of the historical discussion, and then consider essential elements of the good life in light of this historical discourse and the findings of the social sciences, including the focused work on the flourishing life coming out of positive psychology. Finally, we consider some implications of a well-formed understanding of human flourishing for Christian higher education.

Women who have chosen to invest in multiple roles as wife, mother, and professional often experience difficulty in balancing these roles. However, research shows that spousal support for women investing in multiple roles can be an important factor in their experience of distress. The authors conduct qualitative interviews designed to gather experiential information with 30 women who are both faculty members at Christian universities around the country and mothers of children living in the home. Information on the participants' relationships with their husbands and their experiences of spousal support, both practically and emotionally, are determined. Participants report that their spouses help them practically through child care, household chores, and availability in a crisis. Additionally, spouses help their wives through emotional support, including mutual respect, pride in their wives' accomplishments, and interest in their wives' work.

The American Psychological Association (APA) accredits several explicitly Christian doctoral programs in clinical psychology. To what extent do these programs offer training in religious and spiritual diversity that students may [...]

Ballantyne's call for 'reality-orientedness' as a core concept of intellectual humility (IH), though laudable, is too general to unify the field. Rather than pursuing an unlikely consensus, what will likely be more successful in moving the field forward will be greater clarity about how our culturally-based ideologies − discussed as 'worldviews' − shape the understanding, experience, and manifestation of IH. Failing to account for these differences, which has heretofore characterized much IH research, leads to problematic results in the existing IH empirical literature. The focus here is on religious worldviews, where the disregard of worldview is surprising given that humility, including intellectual humility, is consistently valued in major world religions. A worldview approach as a way forward for empirical research is illustrated by discussing how two religious/philosophical traditions − a theistic Christian tradition, and a Buddhist tradition − might conceptualize IH. Implications for measurement are discussed through an example of a theistic IH measure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Academic institutions present specific challenges to women attempting to balance work and family responsibilities. This type of involvement within the subculture of evangelical Christianity presents its own variations. Interviews with 30 mothers working in Christian academia were analyzed using a post hoc content analysis informed by principles of grounded theory (Strauss and Corbin, 1990, 1998). The experiences of these women reveal a number of emotional and practical needs that can inform institutions desiring to create family-friendly climates. These women's stories also reveal that women working within a Christian subculture may differ in displaying tensions consistent with gender-role ideologies that are more conservative than those of the larger society. They seek work environments that are consistent with these ideologies, desire personal integration of their spirituality with their work and family commitments, and express the need for flexibility in establishing goals that are consistent with their ideologies. Implications for Christian institutions are discussed.

In the last 45 years, psychologists, counselors, academicians, and pastors have developed a wide variety of models describing the relationship between Christianity and clinical psychology/counseling. Some espouse no interaction between [...]

Primal world beliefs theoretically operate outside of conscious awareness, influencing perception, appraisals of stimuli, and behaviours. Moral foundations theory proposes that intuitions are the primary determinants of moral decisions. Existing research suggests an important role for religiosity in influencing morality. In this online study of 271 Christians, we hypothesised the primals would predict moral foundations above and beyond the variance accounted for by religiosity. Our results indicate that a belief that the world is alive is the primary primal correlate of moral foundations; a belief that the world is enticing was also related to the moral foundations of care and loyalty. Our results also confirmed the important roles of intrinsic religiosity and fundamentalism found in previous studies. This study demonstrates the importance of primal beliefs in predicting moral foundations, even after accounting for the effects of religiosity. We discuss the implications for decreasing polarization and for future research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The perception that one is a recipient of divine grace is a salient spiritual experience and is one that lies at the heart of Christianity. This qualitative study sought to address a gap in the psychological literature regarding how the perceived experience of divine grace enacts internal change. For the sake of this study, grace was defined as God's undeserved gifts to believers. Thirty adult, self-identified evangelical Christians were interviewed to explore the perceived relationship between God's grace and the cultivation of humility. Using grounded theory data analysis, themes emerged to reveal that participants expressed a dynamic relationship between receiving God's grace and three dimensions of humility related to (a) a grounded view of oneself, (b) an orientation toward others, and (c) an overall dependence on God. These findings expand the current body of literature regarding religiosity and humility by highlighting how divine grace acts as a mechanism of transformational growth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, we review the current status of theory and research on teaching Christian integration in psychology and counseling. Changes in student characteristics, emerging technologies, and paradigm shifts in [...]

This study examines whether adult attachment, God attachment and gender are related to perceived stress. Based on the literature on these variables, it was expected that adult and God attachment [...]

To authenticate to the full-text of this article, please visit this link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1471-6402.2010.01560.x Byline: M. Elizabeth Lewis Hall (1), Brad Christerson (1), Shelly Cunningham (1) Abstract: The present study explored gender harassment in the context of Christian higher education. Specifically, we examined ways in which the theologically based gender schemas in these settings might affect the experiences of harassment among male and female faculty. A questionnaire containing measures of harassment and two aspects of institutional climate (the degree to which the participant feels he or she has influence in the academic unit and perceived access to information about academic life and advancement) was sent to all faculty at a single university; 138 responses (a 65% response rate) were received. Of these, 89 (68%) were male and 42 (32%) female, closely resembling the gender distribution of the faculty. Results indicated that attributing discrimination to the Christian beliefs of the perpetrator moderated the effects of harassment on the two organizational climate variables, potentiating the negative effects at higher levels of harassment. These results suggest that the religious context of institutions should be taken into account in confronting sexism in religiously committed settings. Effective interventions should be tailored to address theological concerns in order to counteract the implied immutability of theologically based sexist statements. Author Affiliation: (1)Biola University Article History: Initial submission: December 17, 2008Initial acceptance: November 23, 2009Final acceptance: January 8, 2010 Article note: Address correspondence and reprint requests to: M. Elizabeth Lewis Hall, Rosemead School of Psychology, Biola University, 13800 Biola Ave., La Mirada, CA 90639. E-mail: liz.hall@biola.edu

Student perspectives on the transmission of integration in integrative programs were examined through a qualitative study. Participants in the study were 595 graduate and undergraduate students (305 women and 247 [...]

Graduate students' perspectives on integration of faith and profession were investigated using item response to identify underlying constructs. Students (N = 595) from various professions and four universities were sampled. [...]

The present study evaluated the 16PF and Marital Satisfaction Inventory (MSI) in terms of their ability to predict missionary success, as measured by supervisor evaluations and attrition data. A sample [...]

The voices of other cultures need to be heard in the growing field of the integration of psychology and theology. This study phenomenologically explored the experience of integration for Chinese [...]

This study investigated the role of spirituality in working Christian mothers coping with tension due to interrole conflict, in light of past research suggesting a relationship between spirituality and coping [...]

Christian psychologists can find it challenging to work in the context of secular psychology, with its presuppositions of methodological naturalism and its secularizing values. Unthinking engagement with the secular field [...]

The present study explored the effects of self-expectations and societal expectations of the host culture on the well-being of 37 married missionary women. The results did not support a relationship [...]

We argue that advancing our understanding of religious meaning-making in the face of trauma and suffering requires greater attention to the specific meanings of suffering that religions offer, and offer an overview of eight functional Christian views of suffering. The beliefs people hold about the traumas they experience lead to differing forms of engagement with their suffering. We first situate religious meanings of suffering in the psychological literature on meaning-making. We next review existing research on religious views of suffering. We then differentiate between causal and functional views of suffering and show why increased attention to functional views promises to strengthen religious meaning-making processes for coping with trauma. Finally, we present an overview of functional views of suffering present in the Christian tradition. In the concluding section, we suggest next steps and implications for research and therapy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sanctification theory proposes that when people appraise an aspect of life as having divine character and significance, this can lead to a number of positive outcomes. While questions remain as to whether a negative aspect of life – suffering – can be sanctified, the Christian tradition supports a sanctification approach. In a series of three online cross-sectional studies with Christian participants, we report on the development of a Christian sanctification of suffering measure, establishing and confirming its factor structure and evaluating its construct in online samples of Christians who indicated they had experienced suffering. In addition, we demonstrate incremental validity over religious commitment and orthodox beliefs about suffering with respect to eudaimonic well-being outcomes. We conclude that the Christian Sanctification of Suffering Scale represents an orthodox Christian approach to the sanctification of suffering that is associated with eudaimonic well-being. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Organisational scientists are paying increasing attention to humility, following a larger trend in scholarship highlighting the relational and interdependent nature of leadership and business. A growing body of evidence identifies humility as vital to effective organisational leadership, facilitating positive organisational outcomes, such as lower voluntary turnover and greater follower job satisfaction. To date, research on the subject has focused on certain specific organisational contexts, including businesses, hospitals, and schools. This paper reviews the existing literature and explores why humility may be an especially important leader trait in international humanitarian aid organisations and relief work—a context that is not only uniquely challenging, but also one that would seemingly stand to benefit keenly from the quality. It argues that humility is essential for effective leadership because it is normative of good character, it is predictive of positive outcomes, and it corresponds to a genuine representation of the nature of humanitarian aid. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: Research has established religion and spirituality as important resources for Black people in the U.S. coping with adversity. Most research has been from an etic perspective, examining religious variables that are valid across multiple religions. In the present study, we asked what emic aspects of the Black church's practices and theological emphases women with cancer drew on in constructing meaning-making narratives from their cancer experience. Method: In this consensual qualitative research study, we interviewed 30 Black women with cancer histories with an average age of 64.5. Results: The religious practice of testimony emerged as the predominant theme. Testimony (a) provided a meaningful purpose to the cancer experience; (b) had a specific content of describing what God had done in their lives as well as some common theological emphases; (c) had dual desired outcomes of helping others and bringing glory to God; and (d) had an associated practice of giving testimony. Conclusion: We discuss testimony as a narrative structure and highlight its importance in informing culturally sensitive interventions aimed at supporting Black women with cancer. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Until recently, psychologists have conceptualised and studied trust in God (TIG) largely in isolation from contemporary work in theology, philosophy, history, and biblical studies that has examined the topic with increasing clarity. In this article, we first review the primary ways that psychologists have conceptualised and measured TIG. Then, we draw on conceptualizations of TIG outside the psychology of religion to provide a conceptual map for how TIG might be related to theorised predictors and outcomes. Finally, we provide a research agenda for future empirical work in this area, as well as practical applications for counsellors and religious leaders. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is with pleasure that we write this introduction to our special issue on Gender and Christianity. This issue represents a logical next step in a research endeavor that has [...]

Mental labor is an under-researched and long-invisible component of family work. Scholars have described mental labor as important, taxing, and disproportionately performed by mothers compared to fathers. However, operational definitions used in these studies were only preliminary and lack unified terminology. Answering calls for expanded views of household labor and better definitions of its content, we undertook a phenomenological investigation of family-related mental labor performed by mothers. Our interpretive phenomenological analysis of seven focus group interviews produced a definition of mothers' mental labor and its component parts that was empirically grounded in the lived experience of mothers of young children (N = 25). Distinct from housework chores, childcare, and emotion work, mental labor emerged as thinking activity performed for the sake of accomplishing family goals. We identified six forms of mental labor: (a) planning and strategizing, (b) monitoring and anticipating needs, (c) metaparenting, (d) knowing (learning and remembering), (e) managerial thinking (including delegating and instructing), and (f) self-regulation. All participating mothers represented themselves as their family's primary mental laborer, regardless of employment status or their partner's level of involvement. Our description of mental labor may help parents, researchers, clinicians, policy makers, and educators recognize, value, and better account for the mental labor dynamics operating in the construction of family life, reproduction of gender roles, and perpetuation of gender gaps in family labor division and mental load. Online slides for instructors who want to use this article for teaching are available on PWQ's website at http://journals.sagepub.com/page/pwq/suppl/index [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present study examined how attachment to God and spiritual self-awareness are related to evangelical Christians’ appraisals of suffering. Specifically, we were interested in whether attachment anxiety and attachment avoidance with God were related to the appraised meaning of stressful life experiences as transformational and whether spiritual self-awareness mediated this relationship. A national sample (N = 988) of students from Christian institutions completed an online survey. The results indicated that individuals with high levels of attachment anxiety or attachment avoidance with God were less likely to view suffering as a means of spiritual growth and connection with God. Mediation analyses also showed that higher levels of avoidant attachment to God were related to lower levels of spiritual self-awareness, which in turn were related to reduced ability to appraise suffering as transformational. Clinical implications and directions for future research are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this review paper is to present a case for more proximal and emic approaches to the study of religious meaning-making in suffering. Meaning-making is an important way in which religion and spirituality contribute to adjustment in the context of encountering difficult life events. However, much of the available research on religious meaning-making ignores the contributions of specific religions to the meaning-making process. We begin by presenting a rationale for more sustained attention to religion-specific resources for meaning-making in suffering. Using Park’s meaning-making model as the organising framework, we then articulate how religions contribute unique global beliefs, situational beliefs, meaning-making processes, and valued outcomes to meaning-making. We illustrate these using existing research. Next, we suggest a refinement to Park’s model, offering a preliminary recursive model involving these identified components. We conclude with a brief prospectus informed by our model for future research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Embodiment involves the engagement of the body with the world, including the relationship between people's bodies and their social contexts. As one aspect of a person's social context, religion has been shown to be linked to body image, weight concerns, and eating behaviours in previous research. The present study extends existing research by examining the relationship between two specific religiously influenced beliefs about the body and three ways of experiencing the body. One view, radical dualism, sees the body as corrupt and separate from oneself, while a second view, sanctification, sees the body as holy, worthy of respect, and integral to one's being. This study examined how both radically dualistic and sanctified views of the body relate to ways people experience their bodies including depersonalisation, body connectedness, and sexuality awareness. Participants were 243 adults from a variety of Protestant denominations. Using an online survey system and self-report measures, participants indicated the degree to which they hold radically dualistic and sanctified views about their bodies as well as the ways they experience their bodies. Radical dualism was found to be positively related to depersonalisation and lack of body connectedness and negatively related to sexuality awareness. Sanctification was found to negatively predict depersonalisation and positively predict body connectedness. Both radical dualism and sanctification predicted body connectedness and depersonalisation over and above more general religious measures. In addition, measures of religion-specific views of the body predicted body connectedness and depersonalisation over and above both general religious measures and more general measures of sanctification. This study contributes to a greater understanding of how religiously based beliefs about the body are related to people's experiences of their bodies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An introduction is presented in which the editor discusses various reports within the issue on topics including theistic and non-theistic sanctification of the body, the protective influence of religious messages, and body-related religious beliefs.

This qualitative analysis investigated women's experiences of identity change in the process of becoming mothers. Thirty semistructured interviews were completed and the analysis was conducted through a grounded theory framework. The analytic process yielded results that grouped into three overarching themes. The first of these relates to the ways in which women lost themselves for a time while incorporating their children into their identities and reforming their identities. The second theme explores the expansion of the self insofar as women incorporated children into their identities and self-boundaries. The third theme explores ways that women felt that mothering and the close relationships with their children intensified their personalities and identities. Implications for future research are explored. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]