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This paper examines the effect of religious fasting on truth‐telling using a laboratory experiment in Egypt. While fasting‐induced religiosity may promote truth‐telling, the physiological and psychological changes during fasting, due to alimentary abstention and self‐control exertion, may reduce honesty, especially when fasting is augmented with effort. We examine this question by tracing individual truth‐telling decisions, in the absence and presence of additional effort, both before and during Ramadan. We find that neither effort nor fasting alone affects honesty, but exerting effort while fasting reduces honesty. We provide suggestive evidence on the mechanisms potentially driving this negative effect on honesty. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: People's psychological tendencies are attuned to their sociocultural context and culture‐specific ways of being, feeling, and thinking are believed to assist individuals in successfully navigating their environment. Supporting this idea, a stronger "fit" with one's cultural environment has often been linked to positive psychological outcomes. The current research expands the cultural, conceptual, and methodological space of cultural fit research by exploring the link between well‐being and honor, a central driver of social behavior in the Mediterranean region. Method: Drawing on a multi‐national sample from eight countries circum‐Mediterranean (N = 2257), we examined the relationship between cultural fit in honor and well‐being at the distal level (fit with one's perceived society) using response surface analysis (RSA) and at the proximal level (fit with one's university gender group) using profile analysis. Results: We found positive links between fit and well‐being in both distal (for some, but not all, honor facets) and proximal fit analyses (across all honor facets). Furthermore, most fit effects in the RSA were complemented with positive level effects of the predictors, with higher average honor levels predicting higher well‐being. Conclusions: Our findings highlight the interplay between individual and environmental factors in honor as well as the important role honor plays in well‐being in the Mediterranean region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Hunger has dramatic adverse effects on individuals and economies. None broadly-shared economic growth will not guarantee hunger reduction, which accentuates the role of socially supportive institutions like food banks, especially in many developing countries where state welfare provision is humble. Food banks have been accused of being inefficient, among other things. The Egyptian Food Bank (EFB) is not the orthodox food bank type. The objective of this paper is to examine the technical efficiency (TE) of the Egyptian Food Bank (EFB) during its eight years of operation; 2006-2013, which is carried using the Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) technique. The DEA results show that the EFB worked on the efficiency frontier with TE score equal to 1 in 2007, 2009, 2010 and 2013. The lowest TE score (0.68) was in 2006, as expected, since this was the year in which the EFB was established. The EFB was also technically inefficient (0.83) in 2008 because of the significant growth rate in its total assets and slightly inefficient in 2011 and 2012 (0.97 and 0.98 respectively) because of the political instability after the 25th January revolution. In conclusion, in normal circumstances, the EFB was and remains to be efficient and thus sustainable. Locally, the Egyptian government must provide more support to the EFB not only for its successful achievements of reducing hunger in Egypt but also for its significant role in human development. Internationally, the EFB's unorthodox model could and should be exported to other countries for worldwide faster hunger eradication. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]