Terror management and religion: evidence that intrinsic religiousness mitigates worldview defense following mortality salience

Terror management theory suggests that people cope with awareness of death by investing in some kind of literal or symbolic immortality. Given the centrality of death transcendence beliefs in most religions, the authors hypothesized that religious beliefs play a protective role in managing terror of death. The authors report three studies suggesting that affirming intrinsic religiousness reduces both death-thought accessibility following mortality salience and the use of terror management defenses with regard to a secular belief system. Study 1 showed that after a naturally occurring reminder of mortality, people who scored high on intrinsic religiousness did not react with worldview defense, whereas people low on intrinsic religiousness did. Study 2 specified that intrinsic religious belief mitigated worldview defense only if participants had the opportunity to affirm their religious beliefs. Study 3 illustrated that affirmation of religious belief decreased death-thought accessibility following mortality salience only for those participants who scored high on the intrinsic religiousness scale. Taken as a whole, these results suggest that only those people who are intrinsically vested in their religion derive terror management benefits from religious beliefs.     

Where,O death,is thy sting? The meaning-providing function of beliefs in literal immortality

Terror management theory suggests that humans invest in cultural worldviews that allay mortality-related anxiety by promising death transcendence. Many religious individuals adhere to belief in literal immortality – believing that one will live on after death. Across two studies (n?=?1137), we explored the terror management function of such beliefs by exploring whether these beliefs are associated with lower death anxiety and greater meaning among individuals of varying religiousness. In both Study 1 (n?=?236) and Study 2 (n?=?901), belief in literal immortality was related to lower death anxiety only among intrinsically religious participants. Moreover, meaning in life mediated the relationship between belief in literal immortality and death anxiety. Study 2 clarified that this mediational relationship was only present for intrinsically religious individuals. We discuss the importance of particular religious beliefs in the provision of meaning in order to manage existential concerns.     

Intrinsic religiousness and religious coping as life stress moderators for Catholics versus Protestants

Two prospective studies were conducted to test the stress-moderating effects of intrinsic religiousness and overall religious coping on the depression and trait anxiety of Catholic and Protestant college students. Both studies found a significant cross-sectional interaction between controllable life stress and religious coping in the prediction of Catholics' depression, with religious coping serving a protective function at a high level of controllable negative events. Both studies also found a significant prospective interaction between uncontrollable life stress and intrinsic religiousness in the prediction of Protestants' depression; the relationship between uncontrollable stress and depression was positive for low intrinsic Protestants, flat for medium intrinsic Protestants, but negative for high intrinsic Protestants. The findings are discussed in terms of their implications for the role of religion in life stress adjustment.     

Intrinsic religiosity protects believers from the existential fear of a human Jesus

ABSTRACT

The present study examined the role of internalised religious beliefs in defending against existential concerns aroused from a creaturely Jesus. Prior work has found that biologically human traits (e.g., vomiting, sweating, etc.) can increase death concerns when applied to both humans and a god. Intrinsic beliefs, however, have been shown to reduce mortality awareness. In the current study, religious participants were primed with thoughts of either a human or neutral Jesus followed by a single item measure about fear of death. A moderated regression analysis found that whereas high intrinsic individuals were buffered from existential concerns, low intrinsic individuals experienced a greater fear of death when primed with a human Jesus. These results replicate prior work within terror management theory and the psychology of religion suggesting that internalised beliefs serve a protective function against existential anxieties.     

The relationship between intrinsic and extrinsic religiosity and competitive anxiety

ABSTRACT

The present study examined the relationship between religiosity and competitive anxiety in college athletes and whether there were differences in competitive anxiety for intrinsically religious and extrinsically religious individuals. College athletes (N?=?95) from three separate sports from the NCAA completed a questionnaire that included the Age-Universal I/E Scale, the Competitive State Anxiety Inventory-2 Revised, open-ended questions on habits related to religion, and demographic items. Results revealed no significant relationship between intrinsic and extrinsic religiosity and competitive anxiety. Extrinsically religious athletes had higher somatic anxiety than intrinsically religious athletes. The majority of participants (77%) reported praying before games primarily for comfort. Athletes turn to religion to calm their nerves but it is important to understand that their approach to religion may relate to increased anxiety. This information is useful for sport practitioners and coaches as they seek to help their athletes seek an intrinsic approach to religion in sport.     

Mediation and moderation of the relationship between intrinsic religiousness and mental health

The present study examined specific aspects of individuals' personal strivings as mediators, and religious tradition as a moderator, of the relationship between intrinsic religiousness and mental health. In a sample of 268 university students, the negative relationship between intrinsic religiousness and hostility was mediated by the degree of sanctification within individuals' strivings. The relationships between intrinsic religiousness and both anxiety and depression were moderated by religious tradition, with Catholics' intrinsic religiousness significantly associated with greater anxiety and depression but Protestants' intrinsic religiousness not significantly associated with either of these mental health variables. Implications of these results for future research on religiousness are discussed.     

Toward an Understanding of Religious Tolerance: Quest Religiousness and Positive Attitudes Toward Religiously Dissimilar Others

We interact frequently with individuals with religious beliefs that vary from our own. Although we may naturally prefer interacting with religiously similar others, individuals vary in their attitudes toward religiously dissimilar others. In the present set of studies, we examined how variability in quest religiousness affects religious tolerance. In Study 1 (N = 159), we found that quest religiousness in Christian undergraduates was associated with positive attitudes toward both non-Christian religious groups and atheists. In Study 2, 118 Christian undergraduates evaluated vignettes regarding a devout moral or an average morality Christian (ingroup) or Muslim (outgroup). Participants preferred moral targets relative to less moral targets. However, when rating moral targets, participants high in quest religiousness preferred the Muslim target (religious outgroup member), whereas those low in quest religiousness preferred the Christian target (religious ingroup member). We discuss implications for the links between quest religiousness and religious tolerance.     

Delay Discounting as a Function of Intrinsic/Extrinsic Religiousness,Religious Fundamentalism,and Regular Church Attendance

Delay discounting occurs when the subjective value of an outcome decreases because its delivery is delayed. Previous research has suggested that the rate at which some, but not all, outcomes are discounted varies as a function of regular church attendance. In the present study, 509 participants completed measures of intrinsic religiousness, extrinsic religiousness, religious fundamentalism, and whether they regularly attended church services. They then completed a delay-discounting task involving five outcomes. Although religiousness was not a significant predictor of discounting for all outcomes, participants scoring high in intrinsic religiousness tended to display less delay discounting than participants scoring low. Likewise, participants scoring high in religious fundamentalism tended to display more delay discounting than participants scoring low. These results partially replicate previous ones in showing that the process of discounting may vary as a function of religiousness. The results also provide some direction for those interested in altering how individuals discount.     

Scientific faith: Belief in science increases in the face of stress and existential anxiety

Growing evidence indicates that religious belief helps individuals to cope with stress and anxiety. But is this effect specific to supernatural beliefs, or is it a more general function of belief — including belief in science? We developed a measure of belief in science and conducted two experiments in which we manipulated stress and existential anxiety. In Experiment 1, we assessed rowers about to compete (high-stress condition) and rowers at a training session (low-stress condition). As predicted, rowers in the high-stress group reported greater belief in science. In Experiment 2, participants primed with mortality (vs. participants in a control condition) reported greater belief in science. In both experiments, belief in science was negatively correlated with religiosity. Thus, some secular individuals may use science as a form of “faith” that helps them to deal with stressful and anxiety-provoking situations.     

Religious coping in highly religious psychiatric inpatients

This study among highly religious psychiatric patients in a mental hospital in the Netherlands focused on the following issues: their religious and spiritual beliefs and activities; their religious coping activities, measured using Pargament's three coping styles and a positive religious coping scale; the influence of religious coping on psychological and existential well-being; and the predictive value of general religiousness, as compared with religious coping activities, regarding psychological and existential well-being.

For this population of inpatients, religion had a positive influence on their ways of dealing with mental problems; religious coping was positively correlated with existential and psychological well-being. General religiousness as well as religious coping were positively correlated with existential well-being, whereas psychological well-being primarily was predicted by positive religious coping.

Results are discussed in the context of theoretical notions of religious coping, addressing in particular the positive influence of religious beliefs, relying on God, religious activities and religious social support in psychological and existential times of crisis.     

Hearts Strangely Warmed (and Cooled): Emotional Experience in Religious and Atheistic Individuals

In light of neurophysiological evidence suggesting a link between hemispheric dominance and religious preference, three studies tested whether atheists and religious individuals process emotions differently. Suggestive of right-hemispheric dominance, individuals who identified with religion reported more intense positive emotions associated with a recalled love experience (Study 1), greater sadness in immediate response to reading a tragic news story (Study 2), and more vivid recall of the subjective details of either their most recent birthday or an existential crisis (Study 3). They also reported greater alexithymia compared to atheists. Overall, agnostic/no religion individuals averaged in between these two groups. The results suggest that, relative to atheists, religious individuals have more accessible yet undifferentiated emotions, which may perhaps serve as raw materials for religious experience.     

Religion as a Predictor of Psychological Distress in Two Religious Communities

Although spirituality and religion play a role in the lives of many North Americans, the relationship of these variables to symptoms of affective disorders has not been rigorously studied. The authors, therefore, evaluated the extent to which religious factors predicted symptoms of distress in a large community sample of 354 individuals (120 Christian and 234 Jewish). Results indicated that religious denomination was a poor predictor of distress. However, general religiousness (e.g. importance of religion), religious practices (e.g. frequency of prayer), and positive religious core beliefs predicted lower levels of worry, trait anxiety, and depressive symptoms, whereas negative religious core beliefs predicted increased symptoms. These variables accounted for a small but significant portion of the variance in reported symptoms after controlling for covariates. These findings are taken to indicate that religion is an important factor to consider when evaluating and treating distress in religious individuals. Implications for clinical practice of empirically supported treatments with religious individuals are explored.     

Coping with terrorism: the impact of increased salience of terrorism on mood and self-efficacy of intrinsically religious and nonreligious people

It was hypothesized that intrinsic religiousness helps to cope with increased salience of terrorism. Intrinsically religious and non-religious participants were told that it is highly probable or highly improbable, respectively, that terrorist attacks will occur in Germany. High probability of terrorism only negatively affected the mood of non-religious participants but not of intrinsically religious participants (Study 1). Using as a realistic context of investigation the terrorist suicide bombings in Istanbul, the authors replicated this finding and shed some light on the underlying psychological processes (Study 2): On the day of the terrorist attacks (high salience of terrorism), non-religious participants experienced less positive emotions and less self-efficacy than did intrinsically religious participants. Two months later (low salience of terrorism), no differences were found between non-religious and intrinsically religious participants with regard to mood and self-efficacy. Mediational analyses suggested that the mood effects were associated with differences in the reported sense of self-efficacy.     

Cross-National Analysis of the Influence of Cultural Norms and Government Restrictions on the Relationship Between Religion and Well-Being

This study examines the interaction between cultural religious norms and governmental restrictiveness as country-level moderators of the relationship between individual religiousness and well-being, including both happiness and physical health. Data come from five waves of World Values survey data from 221 separate surveys conducted in 88 countries, with data from 317,109 individuals. Three dimensions of individual religiousness were assessed, along with corresponding country-level norms aggregated from these measures. Three-way cross-level interactions were tested to examine whether the extent of government restriction modified the relationship between national religious norms and the individual-level association between religious factors and well-being outcomes. Results supported the hypothesis that self-reported religion is most strongly related to greater happiness and better self-reported health in societies where it is freely and widely practiced. In contrast, religiousness may be harmful when it is relatively deviant, and restrictions of freedom may serve to further exacerbate this effect. These results suggest that the positive association between religion and well-being is not universal, but depends upon the right to express religion freely and the opportunity to practice with like-minded others.     

“Speak,Lord, Your Servant Is Listening”: Religious Priming Activates Submissive Thoughts and Behaviors

According to many theoretical perspectives, religion is positively associated with submission and conformity. However, no study to date provided experimental evidence for this hypothesis. We did so in two experiments that relied on priming procedures. In Experiment 1, participants were tested for the strength of their religion-submission associations by using a lexical decision task. In Experiment 2, participants were primed with either religious or neutral concepts and were invited or not by the experimenter to take revenge on an individual who had allegedly criticized them. Both studies provided evidence for the expected religion-submission association, although the effects were limited to participants scoring high in personal submissiveness. Among these individuals, religious priming increased the accessibility of submission-related concepts (Experiment 1) and the acceptance of a morally problematic request for revenge (Experiment 2). Discussion focuses on questions for future research and implications for our understanding of religion's role in morality and interpersonal relations.     

An Investigation of Religion and Spirituality of Sexual Minorities in the United States: Exploring Perceptions,Intrinsic Religiosity,and Outness to Religious Communities

We investigated how sexual minority participants in the United States (N = 217; M age = 36.36 years) viewed organized religion and their relationships with a higher power. In addition, we examined the associations between levels of outness in religious communities, internalized heterosexism (IH), intrinsic religiosity, and depression. Open-ended responses revealed that views of organized religion fell into three categories—negative (57.9%), positive (9.1%), and ambivalent (33%)—and participants reported a variety of relationships to a higher power—existing relationship (61.5%), no relationship (19%), fractured relationship (4.6%), and some who felt unsure (10.8%). Participants with greater outness to a religious community reported less IH and higher intrinsic religiosity. Also, outness to a religious community moderated the association between IH and depression, such that there was not a significant association between IH and depression for individuals with low levels of outness. However, at average to high levels of outness, there was a significant association between IH and depression.     

The mercy of anxiety: A relational-psychoanalytic study of Dialogues des Carmélites

This article discusses the complex relationship between anxiety and religion in identity formation by analysing an intense, contemporary opera, the Dialogues des Carmélites by the French composer Francis Poulenc. The theoretical framework for our discussion was adopted from what is currently called relational psychoanalysis - and more specifically, from the theories of Erik H. Erikson, Ernest G. Schachtel and Donald W. Winnicott. We will try to demonstrate that existential anxiety forms part of the process of developing a (religious) identity, and need not necessarily be a sign of weakness or pathology. Nonetheless, feelings of anxiety may be paralysing in a cultural climate such as ours, which stresses the values of freedom and autonomy. A relational psychoanalytic reading of the opera leads to a re-evaluation of these values, showing that (religious) identity development is an intrinsically relational process. The attitude of receptivity (which is connected to the theological theme of grace) plays an important role in this respect. On completing our analysis, we concluded that relational psychoanalysis complements the existential view on identity and anxiety. We also advocate more attention for the theme of receptivity in the psychology of religion.     

Catholic Commitment Around the Globe: A 52‐ Country Analysis

This article investigates variation in Catholic religious commitment in different macro world regions. Although sociologists have examined variation in Catholic religiosity, this research has tended to be limited to Western European and Latin American contexts and has not gone beyond employing more than one measure of religiosity. In addition, prior research has rarely examined the effect of several explanatory frameworks together. Drawing on data from the European and World Values Survey as well as national‐level data, we test for the influence of secularization/existential security, religious markets, and historical legacies on self‐rated importance of God, private prayer, and church attendance across 52 countries in five world macro‐regional contexts—Africa, Asia, Europe, Latin America, and Oceania—of the church. Our findings provide strong support for the existential security perspective and partial support for the historical legacy perspectives. We conclude with implications for the study of religion and society in general.     

Nonconscious influences of religion on prosociality: a priming study

Past literature on the automaticity of social behavior indicates that priming a concept automatically activates related behavioral schemas. In the two present studies we examined the impact of religion on prosociality. In the first study, we tested the impact of subliminal priming of religious concepts on prosocial behavior intentions. We found a main effect of this priming, moderated by valence: prosocial behavior tendencies were stronger when positive religious words had previously been subliminally primed. In the second study, we examined the accessibility of prosocial concepts, after the supraliminal activation of religion. Indeed, we found that not only were religion‐related attributes more accessible when primed, but positive religious primes were also able to activate prosocial concepts. While previous research has shown the religion‐prosociality link at the explicit level and in terms of the role of individual religiousness, these results indicate that religious concepts by themselves can nonconsciously activate prosocial behavioral schemas. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Spiritual Struggles and Mental Health: Exploring the Moderating Effects of Religious Identity

Although many studies have explored the salutary associations between multiple dimensions of religiousness and psychological well-being, a smaller body of work has focused on the links between spiritual struggles and negative mental health outcomes. Two types of spiritual struggles have received considerable attention in this literature: divine struggles, or troubled relationships with God, and struggles with belief, or religious doubts. Using data from a nationwide online survey of U.S. adults conducted in 2006, our study investigated links between these types of spiritual struggles and four aspects of psychopathology: depressed affect, anxiety, phobic anxiety, and somatization. In particular, we tested the hypothesis that these links vary according to religious identity, such that individuals who identify themselves as highly religious—and therefore are likely to be most invested in their roles as religious persons—experience the strongest negative effects of spiritual struggles, in comparison with persons who identify themselves as moderately religious, or not religious at all. Findings supported this overall hypothesis. The article concludes by noting several study limitations and identifying promising directions for further research.