38,495 research outputs found
Prayer, personality and happiness: a study among undergraduate students in Wales
In order to examine the association between prayer and happiness, a sample of 131 undergraduate students attending a university in Wales completed three measures: the Oxford Happiness Questionnaire, the abbreviated Eysenck Personality Questionnaire Revised, and prayer frequency assessed on a 5-point scale. The data demonstrated a significant positive correlation between prayer frequency and happiness before controlling for individual differences in personality. After controlling for personality, however, this apparent association vanished
Psychological health and attitude toward Christianity: a study among pupils attending Catholic schools in the Netherlands
This study examines the wider relevance of recent research conducted in England, Northern Ireland and Hong Kong concerning the association between religion and psychological health among young people, by administering translations of the same measures to a sample of 980 pupils attending Catholic secondary schools in the Netherlands. These pupils completed the short-form Revised Eysenck Personality Questionnaire together with the Francis Scale of Attitude toward Christianity. The data confirmed the key finding from previous research that a more positive attitude toward Christianity is associated with lower scores recorded on the psychoticism scale. The implications of these findings are discussed for religious educators
The psychological-type profile of lay church leaders in Australia
A sample of 845 lay church leaders (444 women and 401 men) from a range of 24 different denominations and movements (including house churches and independent churches) completed the Francis Psychological-Type Scales within the context of the 2006 Australian National Church Life Survey. The psychological-type profiles of these lay church leaders were almost identical to the type profiles of 1527 Australian churchgoers (936 women and 591 men) published in an earlier study by Robbins and Francis. The predominant types among female lay church leaders were ISFJ (21%), ESFJ (21%), and ISTJ (18%). The predominant types among male lay church leaders were ISTJ (28%), ISFJ (17%), ESTJ (13%), and ESFJ (12%). The SJ temperament accounted for 67% of the female lay church leaders and for 70% of the male lay church leaders. The strengths and weaknesses of the SJ leadership style are discussed
Young people's attitudes to religious diversity : quantitative approaches from social psychology and empirical theology
This essay discusses the design of the quantitative component of the ‘Young People’s Attitudes to Religious Diversity’ project, conceived by Professor Robert Jackson within the Warwick Religions and Education Research Unit, and presents some preliminary findings from the data. The quantitative component followed and built on the qualitative component within a mixed method design. The argument is advanced in seven steps: introducing the major sources of theory on which the quantitative approach builds from the psychology of religion and from empirical theology; locating the empirical traditions of research among young people that have shaped the study; clarifying the notions and levels of measurement employed in the study anticipating the potential for various forms of data analysis; discussing some of the established measures incorporated in the survey; defining the ways in which the sample was structured to reflect the four nations of the UK, and London; illustrating the potential within largely descriptive cross-tabulation forms of analysis; and illustrating the potential within more sophisticated multivariate analytic models
Dynamics of electron currents in nanojunctions with time-varying components and interactions
We study the dynamics of the electron current in nanodevices where there are
time-varying components and interactions. These devices are a nanojunction
attached to heat baths and with dynamical electron-phonon interactions and a
nanojunction with photon beams incident and reflected at the channel. We use
the two-time nonequilibrium Green's functions technique to calculate the
time-dependent electron current flowing across the devices. We find that
whenever a sudden change occurs in the device, the current takes time to react
to the abrupt change, overshoots, oscillates, and eventually settles down to a
steady value. With dynamical electron-phonon interactions, the interaction
gives rise to a net resistance that reduces the flow of current across the
device when a source-drain bias potential is attached. In the presence of
dynamical electron-photon interactions, the photons drive the electrons to
flow. The direction of flow, however, depends on the frequencies of the
incident photons. Furthermore, the direction of electron flow in one lead is
exactly opposite to the direction of flow in the other lead thereby resulting
in no net change in current flowing across the device.Comment: 7 page
Christianity, paranormal belief and personality: a study among 13- to 16-year-old pupils in England and Wales
Studies concerning the changing landscapes of religiosity and spirituality in the lives of young people in England and Wales draw attention to decline in traditional religiosity and to growth in alternative spiritualities. The present study examined whether such alternative spiritualities occupy the same personality space as traditional religiosity. A sample of 2,950 13- to 16-year-old pupils attending 11 secondary schools in England and Wales completed the Francis Scale of Attitude toward Christianity and an index of paranormal belief, alongside the abbreviated-form Junior Eysenck Personality Questionnaire Revised. The data demonstrated that these two forms of belief were related in different ways to Eysenck's dimensional model of personality space. While attitude toward Christianity occupied the space defined by low psychoticism scores (tendermindedness) and high lie scale scores (social conformity), paranormal belief was related to high psychoticism scores (toughmindedness) and was independent of lie scale scores. These findings support the view that alternative spiritualities may be associated with different personalities
A non-perturbative estimate of the heavy quark momentum diffusion coefficient
We estimate the momentum diffusion coefficient of a heavy quark within a pure
SU(3) plasma at a temperature of about 1.5Tc. Large-scale Monte Carlo
simulations on a series of lattices extending up to 192^3*48 permit us to carry
out a continuum extrapolation of the so-called colour-electric imaginary-time
correlator. The extrapolated correlator is analyzed with the help of
theoretically motivated models for the corresponding spectral function.
Evidence for a non-zero transport coefficient is found and, incorporating
systematic uncertainties reflecting model assumptions, we obtain kappa = (1.8 -
3.4)T^3. This implies that the "drag coefficient", characterizing the time
scale at which heavy quarks adjust to hydrodynamic flow, is (1.8 - 3.4)
(Tc/T)^2 (M/1.5GeV) fm/c, where M is the heavy quark kinetic mass. The results
apply to bottom and, with somewhat larger systematic uncertainties, to charm
quarks.Comment: 18 pages. v2: clarifications adde
Vector screening masses in the quark-gluon plasma and their physical significance
Static and non-static thermal screening states that couple to the conserved
vector current are investigated in the high-temperature phase of QCD. Their
masses and couplings to the current are determined at weak coupling, as well as
using two-flavor lattice QCD simulations. A consistent picture emerges from the
comparison, providing evidence that non-static Matsubara modes can indeed be
treated perturbatively. We elaborate on the physical significance of the
screening masses.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures. Submitted as a contribution to the proceedings of
the Quark Matter 2014 conference (talk given by H. Meyer
Critical point and scale setting in SU(3) plasma: An update
We explore a method developed in statistical physics which has been argued to
have exponentially small finite-volume effects, in order to determine the
critical temperature Tc of pure SU(3) gauge theory close to the continuum
limit. The method allows us to estimate the critical coupling betac of the
Wilson action for temporal extents up to Nt ~ 20 with < 0.1% uncertainties.
Making use of the scale setting parameters r0 and sqrt{t0} in the same range of
beta-values, these results lead to the independent continuum extrapolations Tc
r0 = 0.7457(45) and Tc sqrt{t0} = 0.2489(14), with the latter originating from
a more convincing fit. Inserting a conversion of r0 from literature
(unfortunately with much larger errors) yields Tc / LambdaMSbar = 1.24(10).Comment: 12 pages. v2: clarifications and references added, published versio
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