Suchergebnisse

The aim of the study was to examine the extent to which members of six different communities in Lebanon (Catholic, Druze, Maronite, Orthodox, Shiite, and Sunni) share common views about some of the main political issues facing the country, as presented in the press, on the radio, and on television. Participants from the six communities were to read 15 statements regarding political life in the country (for example, `A balance of religious communities is indispensable in a country like Lebanon') and rate their degree of agreement with the content of each statement. The members of the six communities largely agreed as regards the degree of personal support they attributed to each proposition. In addition, the mean responses were the same irrespective of the source (president or prime minister) to which the statements were attributed. Only two issues caused mild disagreement between communities: the establishment of secularism in the country, and confidence in the state. Finally, a structural analysis showed that the ratings were structured around three main factors: views regarding the Palestinians, views regarding Syria, and views regarding Lebanon and its institutions.

The study was aimed at (a) examining the overall level of willingness to forgive expressed by Moslem & Christian Lebanese adults who lived through the Lebanese civil war, (b) examining the factorial structure of the responses given, (c) studying the way education, community, & other characteristics were related to the factorial structure, & (d) comparing Lebanese data with data previously gathered by Mullet et al (1998) in France. A sample of 240 participants from six different communities, Shiite, Sunni, Druze, Catholic, Orthodox, & Maronite, was asked to express their degree of agreement with 38 statements related to forgiveness in general or in specific circumstances. A three-factor solution was found. Overall, participants expressed significant disagreement with statements expressing the desire to seek revenge (the Forgiveness vs Revenge factor), & disagreement with statements indicating that the attitude of "close others" was important (the Social & Personal Circumstances factor). They were generally neutral toward statements related to possible obstacles to forgiveness, clear malevolence, extreme severity of consequences, or lack of repentance by the offender (the Obstacles factor). Mean responses were similar to the ones registered in France. 1 Table, 24 References. Adapted from the source document.

The willingness to forgive was examined in a sample of 517 Kuwaiti citizens, aged 12 to 55 years. Participants were instructed first to read a certain number of stories (in which a harmful act was committed against a child) and then to express their willingness to forgive in each case. The stories included four factors: intent to harm, religious proximity, presence/absence of apologies, and cancellation of consequences. A high level of willingness to forgive was observed among the Kuwaitis studies, irrespective of participants' age and gender. The impact of the religious proximity factor was limited to a very small fraction of the sample.

The propensity to forgive a severe offense is studied in a sample of 48 people from three religious communities in Lebanon: Catholics, Maronites, and Orthodox. The effects of a number of circumstances: intent to harm, cancellation of consequences, religious and social proximity to the offender and apologies from the offender, on the propensity to forgive, and the variation of these effects as a function of age, gender, and educational level, were considered. The method was an application of Norman Anderson's functional theory of cognition. Twenty-four stories were constructed by varying systematically the levels of each of the four factors quoted above. Participants were asked to rate in each case their propensity to forgive on a forgiveness scale. The more important results concern: (a) the overall level of propensity to forgive, which was higher than expected, (b) the impact of the religious proximity factor, which was very slight, and (c) the effect of the apologies factor, which was extremely important.