The Internet is clearly on the way to becoming an integral tool of business, communication, and popular culture in many parts of the world. Computer Mediated Communications has a wide range of supporters and detractors. Some individuals argue the Internet will revolutionize social interactions, where others argue that the Internet will lead to loss of privacy, impersonal communications and isolation. There are also those who argue that the Internet is also being presented as a pedagogical tool for changing how public education is delivered. We believe that the Internet is a neutral social structural tool with several positive possibilities. However, the Internet's extraordinary growth is not without concern. Of particular relevance is the issue of the potential impact of the Internet and computer-mediated communications on the nature and quality of social interaction, especially among young people. This article is an analysis of the possible consequences online communication might have on social interaction rituals. We focus on the current cyber-youth who have grown up with the Internet being a routine part of their everyday life and interaction rituals. A review of current research literature on online interaction and education use of the Internet reveals that in the United States a significant portion of youths are actively using the Internet as an important form of social interaction. This article explores what possible positive and negative outcomes may arise from cyber-youth using the Internet as a primary means of social interaction and how that might influence their development of their interaction ritual skills.

We propose that the internalization of orthodox Christian beliefs serves as a basis for a personal moral standard that discourages prejudice against others as well as for self-critical emotions that follow upon behaving in a discriminatory manner. Two correlational studies tested hypotheses derived from our theory. Study 1 demonstrated that to the extent people endorse orthodox Christian beliefs, they report an internal motivation to respond without prejudice toward homosexuals. Study 2 demonstrated that, when controlling for the effects of right-wing authoritarianism (RWA), endorsement of orthodox Christian beliefs was related to positive attitudes toward homosexuals as individuals or as a group, but not toward homosexuality as a behavior or lifestyle.The role of religion is paradoxical. It makes prejudice and it unmakes prejudice. . . . The sublimity of religious ideals is offset by the horrors of persecution in the name of these same ideals. Some people say the only cure for prejudice is more religion; some say the only cure is to abolish religion. (Allport 1954:413) As the quotation from Allport suggests, empirical findings on the relationship between religion and prejudice have historically been far from straightforward. Early studies on racial prejudice demonstrated that people who claimed to be more religious also reported greater levels of prejudice (Adorno et al. 1950;Allport and Kramer 1946;Rokeach 1960). However, it is now widely accepted, based on the weight of empirical research, that upon controlling for certain variables, internalization of religious (Christian) beliefs is inversely related to racial prejudice among whites (e.g., Herek 1987; Rowatt and Franklin 2004; see Donahue 1985 for a review).The relationship between religion and prejudice against homosexuals, however, remains complex. Studies on self-reported attitudes as well as studies about the behavioral expression of prejudice have defined and measured both religion and prejudice against homosexuals differently. Furthermore, studies have found religion to relate to prejudice against homosexuals to different degrees or even in opposite directions (Laythe et al. 2002). It is difficult to sort out a clear picture of the relationship between religion and homosexual prejudice from the myriad of empirical findings, in part, because the literature lacks a coherent theoretical framework for explaining how the internalization of religious beliefs affects attitudes and behavior toward homosexuals specifically and out-groups more generally.Our research aims to fill this gap in the existing literature. Social-psychological theories about motivation to respond to out-groups without prejudice provide the basis for a theory about how the content of religious beliefs-specifically orthodox Christian beliefs-affect attitudes and behavior toward homosexuals and other out-groups. We present the results of two correlational studies that test our theory and reconcile seemingly paradoxical findings of previous research.

Massive, multiplayer online role-playing games foster rich social environments. Within the game, players can interact with other players, make friends, create and cultivate new online forms of community. Using participant observation and content analysis approaches, this study examines the World of Warcraft as an online community, and investigates the degree to which it exhibits characteristics of a new tribalism.

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