Syncretism and fundamentalism: a comparison

In several ways, syncretism and fundamentalism can be viewed as opposite reactions to the processes of modernization and globalization. Within religious contexts, syncretists and fundamentalists make different choices when confronted with alternatives and with challenges to the accepted practices of daily life. The power dimension is an important aspect for this comparison. But the study of these two modern religious phenomena also points to a similarity with a paradigmatic debate, the contrast between positivist and constructivist approaches. Though the comparison is not the most obvious, there are striking similarities between fundamentalists and positivists, on the one hand, and between constructivists and syncretists, on the other. © 2005 Social Compass

Research Implications of a Field View of Personality

Developing an adequate theory of personality, and research procedures competent to test and extend it, is one of the most challenging tasks faced by social science today. Progress has been blocked by the tendency to extend the concepts and research designs of psychology or of sociology-which are abstract disciplines-to explain behavior in its full empirical manifestations. We can avoid the fallacy of misplaced concreteness by specifying clearly the abstract quality of purely psychological or sociological research and, when our concern is with behavior, by developing a model that takes account simultaneously of individual tendencies and structural influences. This proposition is illustrated by reference to the study of abnormal behavior and the question of personality continuity