Religious Fundamentalism and Terror Management

The study reported herein tested the following hypothesis: Religious fundamentalism can serve a protective function against existential anxiety, such that the need to engage in secular worldview defense when mortality is made salient is reduced for high fundamentalists. The results showed that high fundamentalists engaged in less worldview defense after thinking about their own death versus a control topic. Low fundamentalists, however, engaged in more worldview defense after thinking about their deaths versus a control topic. Exploratory analyses revealed that high fundamentalists' writings about death had a more positive emotional tone and that reactions to the death salience manipulation moderated the impact of fundamentalism on worldview defense. Fundamentalists who saw their deaths in terms of peace and acceptance appeared most protected against terror management concerns.     

Authoritarianism,Religious Fundamentalism,Quest, and Prejudice

Five studies of university students and their parents were carried out to investigate the relationships among right-wing authoritarianism, various indices of religious orientation, and prejudice. Measures of religious fundamentalism, and religious quest, developed for this research, proved to be psychometrically sound, and were good discriminators between prejudiced and unprejudiced persons, across a variety of different measures of prejudice and authoritarian aggression. Scores on both Religious Fundamentalism and Religious Quest scales also were correlated strongly with right-wing authoritarianism and the Christian Orthodoxy scale, although orthodoxy itself tended not to be correlated with prejudice. Apparently, religious fundamentalism and nonquesting are linked with authoritarianism and prejudice toward a wide variety of minority groups. Possible explanations for these relationships are discussed.     

Religious Fundamentalism and Gender Differences

The role of religious fundamentalism and its relationship to shame and guilt was evaluated in 107 students who attend a church-sponsored university. A number of personality measures were given and gender differences were analyzed. The role of externalization was similar for males in this sample to that of earlier studies. However, it was found that females showed positive correlations between externalization and both shame and guilt. For females, more fundamentalistic religious training may help to contribute to an external orientation at the expense of identifying with a personal religion, and appropriate guilt.     

Religious and Psychological Implications of Positive and Negative Religious Coping in Iran

This study examined the religious and psychological implications of religious coping in Iran. University students (N = 224) responded to the Brief Positive and Negative Religious Coping Scales along with measures of Religious Orientation, Integrative Self-Knowledge, Self-Control, Mindfulness, Self-Compassion, Self-Esteem, Guilt, Shame, and Self-Criticism. As in previous research elsewhere, Positive Religious Coping was stronger on average than Negative Religious Coping, and Positive and Negative Religious Coping predicted adjustment and maladjustment, respectively, In addition, this study demonstrated that direct relationships between Positive and Negative Religious Coping appeared to be reliable in Iran; that Positive Religious Copings was broadly compatible with, and Negative Religious Coping was largely irrelevant to, Iranian religious motivations; and that Negative Religious Coping obscured linkages of Positive Religious Coping with religious and psychological adjustment.     

Religious Fundamentalism and Religious Orientation Among the Greek Orthodox

The experimenters explored how religious fundamentalism related with religious orientation, irrational thinking, and immature defense mechanisms. They also explored the possible moderational role of the Big 5 personality factors. The participants were predominantly Greek Orthodox College students from a Cypriot University. The experimenters employed a cross-sectional design and required participants to complete a series of self-report measures. Religious fundamentalism significantly predicted irrational thinking. Intrinsic and personal extrinsic religious orientations significantly predicted religious fundamentalism. The results provide support for the idea that the more dogmatically one holds their religious beliefs, the more likely they are to think irrationally.     

Religious Coping and Psychological Distress in Military Veteran Cancer Survivors

Research on the relationship between religious coping and psychological well-being in cancer survivors is limited. Forty-eight veteran cancer survivors completed measures of psychological distress, posttraumatic growth, and positive and negative religious coping. Negative religious coping was associated with greater distress and growth. Positive religious coping was associated with greater growth. Gender, race, and religious affiliation were significant predictors of positive and negative religious coping. Veteran cancer survivors who utilize negative religious coping may benefit from referral to clergy or a mental health professional. Assessment of religious coping may be particularly important for female, non-White, and Christian cancer survivors.     

Religious Coping, Psychological Distress and Disability Among Patients with End-Stage Pulmonary Disease

A growing body of literature suggests that individuals who face life-threatening situations turn to religion to help them cope. Religion has been cited as the most frequently used resource to cope with stressful events (K. I. Pargament, 1997). The present study was the first to investigate the religious coping methods of patients with lung disease who are awaiting transplant and to identify which coping methods are associated with distress and disability. The study was an exploratory, cross-sectional analysis of 90 patients with end-stage pulmonary disease who were being evaluated for transplant. Results indicated that religiosity was highly prevalent. Patients employed a combination of religious coping efforts, but mostly used coping methods considered positive. Patients with late-onset pulmonary diseases used religious coping strategies more frequently than patients with cystic fibrosis. Hierarchical regression analyses identified a subset of religious coping strategies that predicted 27%, 14%, and 34% of the unique variance in depression, overall disability, and psychosocial disability, respectively.     

Recollections of Childhood Sexual Abuse: Complexities of Religious Coping and Muslim Religious and Psychological Adjustment in Afghanistan

Journal of Religion and Health - Religious coping is a double-edged sword. Clarification of the psychological benefits for positive religious coping requires statistical controls for negative...     

Religious Coping,Body Dissatisfaction,and Bulimic Symptomatology

The authors explored the association among body dissatisfaction, religious coping, and bulimic symptomatology. The results suggest that spiritual discontent religious coping was detrimental for the college female participants (N= 398) when considered in relationship to bulimic symptomatology. Implications of the findings for theory refinement, future research, and clinical practice are discussed.     

The Relationship of Religious and General Coping to Psychological Adjustment and Distress in Urban Adolescents

The present study explored the relationships among stress, general and religious coping, and mental health in a sample of urban adolescents. The participants included 587 9th- through 12th-grade students attending two Catholic high schools in the New York City area. They completed a set of self-report measures assessing perceived stress, religious coping, general coping, clinical symptomology, positive and negative affect, and life satisfaction. Correlation and regression analyses were used to describe relationships among variables. Perceived stress, negative religious coping, and avoidant coping were significantly associated with indicators of psychological distress. Conversely, positive religious coping and active/engagement coping were significantly associated with indicators of psychological adjustment. Negative religious coping also was found to moderate the relationship between perceived stress and positive affect. Finally, partial correlational analyses revealed significant relationships between religious coping and mental health indicators, even after controlling for the contributions of general coping. Implications of the findings for research and clinical practice with adolescent populations are considered.     

Religious Support,Motives for Having Large Families,and Psychological Functioning Among Religious Jewish Mothers

The effects of religious support, maternal motivations for having large families, and their interactions on psychological functioning were assessed in a sample of 79 religious Israeli Jewish mothers of six or more children. Religious support from religious leaders, community, and G-d—as well as faith-focused maternal motivation—were all positively related to adaptive psychological functioning. In contrast, self-focused maternal motivation was negatively related to adaptive functioning. Moreover, religious support and maternal motivation were both related to psychological functioning even after controlling for social support. Finally, several significant interactions between religious support and maternal motivation emerged and are also discussed.     

Church-Based Social Support and Religious Coping

The purpose of this study is twofold: to explore the nature of church-based social support, and to see whether support received in religious settings is related to the use of religious coping methods. The data come from a nationwide survey of members of the Presbyterian Church USA. Three dimensions of religious support are examined in detail: emotional support from church members, spiritual support from church members, and emotional support from the pastor. These dimensions of support are used to evaluate an issue that has been largely overlooked in the literature—the relationship between religious support and religious coping. The findings reveal that people are especially inclined to use positive religious coping responses when they receive spiritual support from church members. Even though emotional support from the pastor also increases the use of religious coping methods, the relationship is not as strong. Finally, emotional support from church members has no effect.     

Psychological Type and Tolerance for Religious Uncertainty

A sample of 315 adult church-goers completed the MBTI questionnaire assessment of psychological type together with an index of Christian agnosticism. The data demonstrate that Christians who prefer intuition rather than sensing are more tolerant of religious uncertainty. The implications of this finding are discussed for pastoral practice. Pastoral Theology and Mansel Jones Fellow at     

Religious Fundamentalism and Limited Prosociality as a Function of the Target

Two distinct research traditions have established that (a) religiosity implies prosocial tendencies, though limited to proximal targets, and (b) religious fundamentalism (RF) relates to prejudice, often because of underlying right‐wing authoritarianism (RWA). Through two studies, we investigated the idea that RF, due to underlying religiosity, also predicts prosociality that is limited to proximal rather than distal targets. Specifically, we found that RF, unlike RWA and because of religiosity, predicted prosociality towards a nonfeminist but not a feminist target in need (Experiment 1) and willingness to help friends but not unknown people in need in the same hypothetical situations (Experiment 2). Moreover, like RWA, RF implied negative attitudes towards the feminist. This limited, not extended, prosociality of people scoring high on RF was in contrast with their self‐perceptions of being universally altruistic. Fundamentalism seems to combine religiosity's qualities (in‐group prosociality) with authoritarianism's defects (out‐group derogation).     

The Relationship Between Religion and Religious Coping: Religious Coping as a Moderator Between Religion and Adjustment

This study examined the relationship between and among religion, religious coping, and positive/negative psychological adjustment and investigated whether the four religious coping styles of Self-Directing, Deferring, Collaborative, and Turning to Religion would significantly moderate the relationship between religion and psychological adjustment. Each of the four religious coping measures were significant moderators between religion and positive and negative adjustment. However, the high self-directing and high religion group showed opposite results from the other three coping styles, in that they were the most maladjusted and least satisfied with life compared to the other three integration and religious coping groups. The participants high on religion and high deferring, high collaborative, and high turning to religion groups were less maladjusted and more satisfied than the other three groups in each of these religious coping styles.