Sense of safety or meaning in danger? Real-contact stick fighting as an imagistic ritual.

It is a common assumption that human behavior is guided by a desire to feel safe and avoid harm. However, this view is challenged by the popularity of high-risk leisure sport and other practices that involve subjecting oneself to a considerable danger with no apparent gain. By using real-contact stick fighting as an example, I suggest that the attractiveness of at least some such practices can be explained by cognitive dynamics that are typical of affectively intense rituals such as initiations.

Disentangling national and religious identification as predictors of support for religious minority rights among Christian majority groups.

It is often assumed that, in Western societies, Christian values are embedded in national identities, yet, the association between religious identities and prejudice has seldom been studied in parallel to national identity. According to both the social identity theory approach and integrated threat theory, group identification is important for perceiving threats and expressing corresponding attitudes. Nevertheless, their independent roles on intergroup outcomes have often been ignored, although they are two of the most salient and important identities when considering support for religious minority rights.