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The United Nations is one of the organizations charged with developing and promoting international human rights law. One of the primary ways that the United Nations tries to do that is by regularly reviewing the human rights practices of member states and then recommending new policies for that state to implement. Although this expends considerable resources, a number of obstacles have made it difficult to empirically assess whether the UN’s review process actually causes countries to improve their human rights practices. To study this topic, we conducted an experiment in Pakistan that tested whether respondents were more likely to support policies aimed at improving women’s rights when they learned that the reforms were proposed by the United Nations. Our results indicate that the respondents who were randomly informed of the United Nations endorsement not only expressed higher support for the policy reforms, but also were more likely to express willingness to ‘mobilize’in ways that would help the reforms be implemented. Our treatment did not have any effect, however, on respondents that did not already have confidence in the United Nations. This suggests that the international human rights regime may only be able to aid domestic reformers when there is already faith in those institutions.

Although jihadist threats are regarded as foreign, most Islamist terror attacks in Europe and the United States have been orchestrated by Muslims born and raised in Western societies. In the present research, we explored a link between perceived deprivation of Western Muslims and endorsement of extremism. We suggest that Western-born Muslims are particularly vulnerable to the impact of perceived relative deprivation because comparisons with majority groups’ peers are more salient for them than for individuals born elsewhere. Thus, we hypothesized that Western-born, compared with foreign-born, Muslims would score higher on four predictors of extremism (e.g., violent intentions), and group-based deprivation would explain these differences. Studies 1 to 6 (Ns = 59, 232, 259, 243, 104, and 366, respectively) confirmed that Western-born Muslims scored higher on all examined predictors of extremism. Mediation and meta-analysis showed that group-based relative deprivation accounted for these differences. Study 7 (N = 60) showed that these findings are not generalizable to non-Muslims.

The present research aimed to explore the role of media consumption, governmental distrust, and psychological vulnerability in predicting the practical well-being of university students and healthcare professionals during COVID-19. Two correlational studies were conducted. Study 1 was conducted with 411 university students (206 Women; 205 men), and it was conducted during the first lockdown in Pakistan. Study 2 was conducted during the thigh-intensity phase he COVID-19, and the sample comprised 375 healthcare professionals (198 women; 177 men). Both studies showed that higher levels of media consumption, governmental distrust, and psychological vulnerability were associated with lower levels of well-being. Our path models in both studies (with students and healthcare professionals) indicate that during the pandemic, participants’ level of media consumption, trust in the government, and their personal vulnerability were negatively associated with their affective well-being. These findings have implications for individuals’ affective well-being during healthcare crises such as the COVID-19 pandemic. Plain Language Summary This research paper investigates the impact of media consumption and distrust in government on psychological vulnerability and well-being during times of stress, specifically the COVID-19 pandemic. Two correlational studies were conducted to examine this relationship. Study 1 involved university students, while Study 2 focused on medical professionals. The results from both studies consistently revealed that higher levels of media consumption and governmental distrust were associated with increased psychological vulnerability and were negatively linked to the well-being of both groups. These findings carry significant implications for individuals’ emotional well-being during challenging periods, as people often rely on media for information and look to the government for support.

Identities of religious believers can motivate believers’ passions, emotions, and action tendencies. Religious identity-based passion can, therefore, lead people to identify with certain kinds of movements, both peaceful and extremist. Around the globe, identities of religious minorities provide a compelling context for studying peaceful and extremist activism driven by passion. Building on previous literature on social identity theory, passion, and religious identity, it was hypothesized that religious identity predicts passion of both types: Harmonious Passion (HP) and Obsessive Passion (OP). It was proposed that people who were harmoniously passionate about their religious identity would promote peaceful activism whereas people who were obsessively passionate would promote hatred and extremism. A sample of 221 devout Shias (a religious minority) from Pakistan participated in the survey-based experiment of this study (males = 108, females = 113; ages ranging from 19 to 38 years, Mage = 22, SD = 2.13; experimental condition = 111, control condition = 110). The results supported the key hypotheses of the study: identification with a minority (Shia Identity) leads to both Harmonious Passion (HP) and Obsessive Passion (OP); when the Shia Identity was threatened, HP and OP scores were lower. Furthermore, HP predicted peaceful activism whereas, under a threat to identify, OP increased and showed a significantly higher violent stance, predicting religious extremism. These findings support the assumption that HP leads to Peaceful Activism, whereas OP is associated with increased support for Extremism and Hatred. The results of this study replicated existing theoretical and empirical predictions about passion pathways and threats to religious identity. The implications of the findings are discussed in the context of contemporary identity threats and activism strategies among Muslim minorities in Pakistan.

This study explores the lived experiences of Ukrainian refugee mothers who have resettled in Norway under the temporary collective protection scheme. In particular, the research investigates how structural integration mechanisms, psychosocial well-being, and individual aspirations intersect in shaping adaptation processes. A qualitative design was adopted, using semi-structured interviews with ten Ukrainian refugee mothers residing across different Norwegian municipalities. Analysis was conducted within a critical-realist and contextualist stance using reflexive thematic analysis, with attention to both systemic constraints and agentic responses. Three overarching themes were identified. First, captures participants' frustrations with the one-size-fits-all integration model, with particular emphasis on language barriers and the non-recognition of pre-migration professional qualifications. Second, reflects the psychological distress associated with temporary protection status, ongoing uncertainty, and dependency on welfare mechanisms. Third, highlights a future-oriented stance marked by resilience, maternal responsibility, and appreciation for Norwegian safety and values. The findings demonstrate that while Ukrainian refugee mothers in Norway face significant institutional and psychological challenges, they also exhibit high levels of motivation and adaptive resilience. Structural barriers compound feelings of liminality and hinder full participation in Norwegian society.

IntroductionHuman Activity Recognition (HAR) using sensor-generated time-series data has gained significant attention for assessing mental and physical states to address various behavioral disorders. This study utilizes benchmark datasets of stress-related activities to improve prediction performance.MethodsTo achieve this, we employ multiple deep learning architectures, including Recurrent Neural Networks (RNNs), Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM) networks, and Transformer models, for feature extraction and classification. Comprehensive experiments are conducted to evaluate model performance, with particular focus on the impact of window size and overlap ratio on classification accuracy.ResultsThe experimental results demonstrate that Transformer models outperform LSTM and RNN models, achieving classification accuracies of 97.83%, 97.36%, and 92.4% on the test dataset, respectively. Furthermore, the proposed approach shows a significant improvement over the deep neural network reported in the original Stressense dataset study.DiscussionThese findings highlight the effectiveness of Transformer-based architectures for HAR tasks involving stress detection. The improvement in classification performance suggests strong potential for advancing seamless mental health monitoring using non-intrusive wearable devices.

The purpose of this research is to explore the antecedents of young women's fear of achievement (FOA) in Karachi, Pakistan. Based on the empirical literature, a semi-structured interview guideline was developed for conducting focus groups until a data-rich saturation level was achieved. To this end, eight focus groups were conducted with 61 females (mean age = 22.5 years). Interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA) was used to interpret lived and subjective experiences of women's fear of becoming high achievers. The results of this research indicated that women had a low sense of achievement in response to successful experiences, and high fear of success in terms of their future ventures. Women expressed gender discrimination in how they were socialized, pressured by religious and patriarchal norms, and their beliefs and experiences of success and achievements. These findings can be explained by gendered socialization practices in Pakistan, culturally embedded religious and patriarchal norms, objectification of women, silencing, and early marriages. Overall, females are provided with different sets of expectations for achievement in the feminine-communal orientations and are distant from success-related competence orientations. The paper also discusses possible implications of our findings for young Pakistani women and proposes the need for scholarship and concerted efforts to resolve the factors that instigate the FOA among women.

Understanding the psychological processes that drive violent extremism is a pressing global issue. Across six studies, we demonstrate that perceived cultural threats lead to violent extremism because they increase people’s need for cognitive closure (NFC). In general population samples (from Denmark, Afghanistan, Pakistan, France, and an international sample) and a sample of former Mujahideen in Afghanistan, single-level and multilevel mediation analyses revealed that NFC mediated the association between perceived cultural threats and violent extremist outcomes. Further, in comparisons between the sample of former Afghan Mujahideen and the general population sample from Afghanistan following the known-group paradigm, the former Mujahideen scored significantly higher on cultural threat, NFC, and violent extremist outcomes. Moreover, the proposed model successfully differentiated former Afghan Mujahideen participants from the general Afghan participants. Next, two preregistered experiments provided causal support for the model. Experimentally manipulating the predictor (cultural threat) in Pakistan led to higher scores on the mediator (NFC) and dependent variables (violent extremist outcomes). Finally, an experiment conducted in France demonstrated the causal effect of the mediator (NFC) on violent extremist outcomes. Two internal meta-analyses using state-of-the-art methods (i.e., meta-analytic structural equation modeling and pooled indirect effects analyses) further demonstrated the robustness of our results across the different extremist outcomes, designs, populations, and settings. Cultural threat perceptions seem to drive violent extremism by eliciting a need for cognitive closure.

This study was aimed at exploring the role of Fulbright program in building perception about U.S. and Americans among Pakistani Fulbright scholars. While a host of theory and research had been growing on contact theory (Allport, 1954; Pettigrew & Tropp, 2008), application of contact hypothesis to cultural exchange programs based on foreign policy intended to develop peace and affective ties between nations has been limited. Specifically, this research gap was filled by this study that focused on the impact of direct contact on perception and image of the U.S. in the context of the U.S. and Pakistan Fulbright program. Pakistani Fulbright scholars (81 men, 67 women; Mean age = 23 years; Range = 21-29 years), with low-contact and high-contact were compared with respect to their perceptions of a prototypical American and the United States as an international entity. Compared to participants with low-contact (n = 52), participants with high-contact (n = 96) had developed a higher positive perception of a prototypical American. Furthermore, compared to participants with low-contact, those with high-contact perceived the U.S. significantly more as an ally and less as an imperialist-enemy nation. Participation was controlled through selection for the Fulbright program and no previous visits to the U.S. Discussion has focused on possibilities for foreign policy and peace related implications of the Fulbright program.

Objective Although male relatives tend to sway people toward, and female relatives tend to sway people away from conservative political attitudes, there exist many ways in which family composition might cause these effects. Here we test several pathways whereby family might influence attitudes toward female veiling, gender stereotypes, and status-seeking in Pakistan. Methods Research assistants administered a survey to a diverse sample of 538 adults in Karachi neighborhoods of varying socio-economic status. Within each neighborhood we selected households and available adults within households randomly. Surveys captured socio-demographic data about the participant and their household, and their opinion on family structures, culture, gender roles, religion, and female attire. Results We find that likelihood of deriving future reproductive fitness from males increases status-seeking and stereotypes of women as warm and kind but decreases support for women having the right to choose whether to wear a veil in public. In contrast, deriving future fitness from females leads people to stereotype women as less warm but highly competent. Family effects were distinguishable from those deriving from an individual’s own sex. Conclusions Findings suggest that the inclusive fitness people gain through relatives of each gender may be one of the factors responsible for family effects, shifting dimensions of social cognition and swaying attitudes relevant to sexual conflict.