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As "justice natives," today's undergraduate students are motivated to engage directly with the world around them in ways unseen throughout most previous generations. Interestingly, secular humanistic perspectives on changemaking are in keeping with a wide variety of biblical teachings and principles of Christian social thought. At the same time, educators and practitioners can better engage these students to lessen a disconnect that often seems to emerge between social justice causes and the modern church. This paper applies a praxis-based approach, Kingian Theology, the Beatitudes from the gospels, elements of liberation theology, Wesley's thoughts about community engagement, and principles of both Catholic and broader Christian social thought to the modern idea of changemaking, positioning Christianity and the gospels as a liberating force for equality rather than as a colonizing or even racist-associated oppressive ideology.

As "justice natives," today's undergraduate students are motivated to engage directly with the world around them in ways unseen throughout most previous generations. Interestingly, secular humanistic perspectives on changemaking are in keeping with a wide variety of biblical teachings and principles of Christian social thought. At the same time, educators and practitioners can better engage these students to lessen a disconnect that often seems to emerge between social justice causes and the modern church. This paper applies a praxis‐based approach, Kingian Theology, the Beatitudes from the gospels, elements of liberation theology, Wesley's thoughts about community engagement, and principles of both Catholic and broader Christian social thought to the modern idea of changemaking, positioning Christianity and the gospels as a liberating force for equality rather than as a colonizing or even racist‐associated oppressive ideology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Increased text messaging across relationships is well-documented, but little research explores how texting style impacts initial impressions of gender/sexuality. Extended research demonstrating that some men avoid expressive forms of communication in order to appear masculine, this project explores whether expressive text messaging (frequent emoji usage and exclamation points) is likely to decrease perceptions of masculinity and/or heterosexuality among male-identified confederates. In a 2 x 2 experiment (expressiveness by confederate sex), participants texted with an unknown interaction partner and rated conversational qualities and perceived attributions about the masculinity/heterosexuality of those confederates. While participants preferred interacting with more expressive partners, there were significant impacts upon ratings of partners' gender and sexual orientations. Results have implications for men's development of interpersonal relationships with unknown others. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Individual differences influence both relational behaviors and third-party perceptions. This study extends research on perceptions of nonverbal greetings by analyzing personality characteristics, self-presentational goals, and cognitive processing in the evaluation of ritualized nonverbal greetings between men. 146 subjects watched one of two different videos showing male friends publicly greeting one another using either intimate or non-intimate touch. Results demonstrate the influence of nonverbals and the relative appropriateness of ritualized greetings. Participants were also increasingly distracted by intimate touch in the videos if they had stronger desire for heterosexual self-presentation, indicating stressors associated with an increased cognitive load. This study highlights influences of gender orientation, self-presentation, and nonverbal norms upon both observer's cognitive processing and one's subsequent attitude towards relational behaviors. Keywords: masculinity, same-sex friendship, nonverbal greetings, cognitive load, perception, When looking at the development of friendships, it is important to look at the origins of such relationships. Evolutionary processes caused something resembling 'friendship' to have evolved over time in [...]

Although the nature of intimacy within same-sex male friendships exhibits a marked difference from that of same-sex female friends, the open sharing of the self (known as self-disclosure) does occur regularly among male friends, albeit to a varying degree. The present research looks at the relationship between gender role orientation and self-disclosive behavior, empirically confronting the cultural stereotype that the enactment of self-disclosure is gendered. Most significantly, the present research looks at the effects of various conceptualizations of self-disclosure on multiple measures of closeness within a relationship, with increasing self-disclosure consistently found to be positively correlated with measures of increasing closeness within men's same-sex friendships. Keywords: self-disclosure, friendship, sex, gender, intimacy, Although closeness has been defined and measured in various ways (for a review, see Berscheid, Snyder, & Omoto, 1989), lay views of what comprises close friendship often include an open [...]

This study examines two accounts to explain why doing a favor for someone leads to increased compliance from that person. Feelings obligation and liking are posited as independent mediators of the relationship between favors and compliance. A model was tested with a sample of 73 female undergraduate participants. The model posited that attitude similarity leads to perceived similarity and subsequent feelings of liking, that favors lead to liking and obligation, and that liking and obligation lead to increased compliance. Findings indicated that favors increased liking and obligation and that liking affected compliance but obligation had no effect on compliance. The results challenge conventional wisdom concerning the influence of the norm of reciprocity. Keywords: norm of reciprocity; pregiving; liking; compliance; favors

This study examines both relational and personal outcomes of relational maximization and social self-efficacy within college friendships. Data from 274 college students were analyzed, including participants' orientations toward relationships (relational maximization and social self-efficacy), relational outcomes (satisfaction and liking), and personal outcomes (loneliness and depression). Relational maximization was negatively related to satisfaction and liking, whereas it was positively related to loneliness and depression. Social self-efficacy was positively related to satisfaction and liking, whereas it was negatively related to loneliness and depression. Regression analyses indicated that social self-efficacy was the strongest predictor of both relational and personal outcomes. Finally, interaction effects between relational maximization and social self-efficacy occurred for both satisfaction and depression. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For individuals in exclusive romantic relationships, the dynamics of sexual experimentation are nuanced. Extradyadic behavior outside of a relationship may be perceived as cheating or infidelity, with much of those perceptions driven by the biological sex of the perceiver. This study significantly reframes seminal research on perceptions of cheating with third-party friends by Kruger et al. (2013), to further nuance an evolutionary threat-based model. In doing so, this furthers our understanding of the associated perceptions of individuals in heterosexual relationships when confronted by partners' cheating with their same-sex cross-orientation friends. Results indicate that perceptions of same-sex infidelity vary widely depending on the nature of the behaviors, with decreasing attribution given to sexual and erotic behaviors, close relational behaviors, and casual social interaction behaviors, respectively. Implications are discussed for a variety of sexual communities, as well as the impact of gender and relational status on perceptions of infidelity.