Influence of Maternal Denomination, God Concepts, and Child-Rearing Practices on Young Children's God Concepts

This study tests a model of individual differences in God concepts among kindergarteners, based on social learning and projection theory. Relations among maternal education, religious denomination, God concepts, child-rearing practices, and young children's God concepts were examined. Subjects were 363 Dutch preschoolers (mean age = 66 months) and 271 of their mothers belonging to three religious denominations (open Christian, orthodox Christian, and nonaffiliated). Child-rearing practices as well as God concepts were measured using questionnaires. God concepts were operationalized as ideas about potential characteristics of God. The model was partly supported. Maternal orthodox Christian denomination, God concepts, and child-rearing practices all had effects on children's "potent God" concept, confirming all parts of the model. Differences in children's "punishing God" concept were explained by strict child-rearing practices, providing evidence for projection theory only. Children's "loving and caring God" concepts were predicted by mothers'"loving God" concept, lending support for social learning theory .     

Conceptualizing a Nonnatural Entity: Anthropomorphism in God Concepts

We investigate the problem of how nonnatural entities are represented by examining university students’ concepts of God, both professed theological beliefs and concepts used in comprehension of narratives. In three story processing tasks, subjects often used an anthropomorphic God concept that is inconsistent with stated theological beliefs; and drastically distorted the narratives without any awareness of doing so. By heightening subjects’ awareness of their theological beliefs, we were able to manipulate the degree of anthropomorphization. This tendency to anthropomorphize may be generalizable to other agents. God (and possibly other agents) is unintentionally anthropomorphized in some contexts, perhaps as a means of representing poorly understood nonnatural entities.     

Concepts of God and Germs: Social Mechanisms and Cognitive Heuristics

Previous research has shown that the more individuals view observable entities as animate, the more those entities are associated with having psychological and physiological experiences. This study examined the relationship between children's animistic and anthropomorphic reasoning for concepts of unobservable scientific (i.e., germ) and religious (i.e., God) entities. This study further explored how children's conceptions vary according to the social learning opportunities (i.e., discourse, rituals) parents reportedly create. Parent–child dyads with young children from diverse ethnic and religious backgrounds participated. Three central findings emerged. First, children readily associated God with psychobiological characteristics but did not do so to the same extent for germs. Second, children applied more psychobiological properties to both entity types when they believed that the entity was animate. Third, engaging in rituals and discourse with parents was indirectly related to children's concepts of God but not related to their concepts of germs. Overall, this study presented support for a connection between children's animistic and anthropomorphic reasoning for unobservable entities, and an indirect effect of cultural input on this reasoning. The implications of these findings will be discussed.     

Mother, Father, and Self: Sources of Young Adults' God Concepts

Following developmental attachment theory, we predicted a path in which nurturing parents affect young adults' self-concepts and self-esteem, which in turn predicts the image of a nurturing God. To ascertain how images of parents and images of self predict God images, 132 young adults aged 18–22 (M = 19) completed the Tennessee Self-Concept Scale, and a six-item measure of God's perceived involvement in their lives (religiosity scale). In a follow-up interview, they rated their parents, God, and selves on scales of closeness, nurturing, power, and punishing/judging. For men, mothers were responsible, more than fathers, for creating a climate for sons' self-esteem through nurturance and discipline, which in turn contributed to seeing God as nurturing, feeling close to God, and being more religious. For women, mothers and fathers created a model of nurturance and power, which contributed to seeing God as nurturing and powerful. Punishing/judging parents directly affected punishing/judging God images in these young adults. Men perceived God to be more punishing/judging than did women, while women perceived God to be more nurturing. Even in adulthood, parents, especially mothers, continue to exert influences on young adults' faith and images of God.     

God images and self-worth among adolescents in Scotland

A sample of 866 young people between the ages of 12 and 15 in Scotland completed measures of self-worth and God images. The data demonstrate a positive relationship between self-worth and images of God as loving and forgiving, and a negative relationship between self-worth and images of God as cruel and punishing.     

Natural scenes upset the visual applecart

The effortless ease of everyday vision seems to contradict numerous findings on the limited capacity of visual attention. However, natural scenes appear to escape the stringent limitations of attention that apply to seemingly far simpler stimuli. This astonishing result will oblige us to rethink the nature of visual attention and its limited capacity.     

Speaking of God after the Death of God

Abstract :  This article affirms the ability to talk about God in the twenty‐first century 40 years after God died (according to Death‐of‐God theologians) in the 1960s. It does so by an appeal to the proper combination of mystery and revelation ideally expressed in the paradox that God reveals Godself as hidden. The language of God's revealed hiddenness comprises a "middle way" which avoids the extremes of theological hubris on the one hand and atheism or unbelief on the other, making it possible to speak today of God in a faithful yet humble manner.     

Prevalence and correlates of self-reported depressive mood among seriously emotionally disturbed adolescents.

This study examined self-reported depression on the Reynolds Adolescent Depression Scale among 45 seriously emotionally disturbed adolescents. Scores of one-third of the sample exceeded the cut-off score, which indicated the need for further diagnostic study to assess the possible presence of depression. Significant positive correlations included an association with school attendance, a relationship with scores on the Revised Children's Manifest Anxiety Scale, and an association with teachers' ratings on two subscales of the Revised Behavior Problem Checklist. Also, the Depression scale's negative association with the Lie subscale of the Manifest Anxiety Scale is interpreted as indicative of seriously emotionally disturbed adolescents' response style on self-reported measures of depression.     

Image of God and Community Volunteering among Religious Adherents in the United States

Individual theological beliefs provide important motivations for religious people to volunteer in their communities. Compassion and loving one’s neighbor are both ideas that can motivate individuals to volunteer their time and talents. Religious believers who have conservative theological beliefs may see volunteering for their communities as a minor factor in their religious calling. Recent research on the role of social embeddedness within religious communities, however, has questioned the importance of theology as a motivation to volunteer (Putnam and Campbell, in American Grace. Simon and Schuster, New York, 2010; Lewis et al., in Soc Sci Res 42: 331–346, 2013). In this paper we test the effects of a religious adherent’s image of God’s disposition toward the world on their pattern of community volunteering. Using data from the 2005 Baylor Religion Survey and multinomial logit models, we find that having an image of God as judgmental lowers the odds that religious adherents report having volunteered for the community independent of their place of worship. Adherents who are most willing to engage the external community independent of a place of worship are those with less judgmental images of God. We also find that embeddedness is associated with volunteering for and with the place of worship in the community. Implications for theory, research and social capital formation are discussed.     

Positive God Images and Positive Emotions toward God: Exploring Variations among Whites,Blacks, and Hispanics

How people view God is an important part of religious life. The purpose of this study is to see if four positive God image measures and two measures of positive emotions toward God vary among Whites, Blacks, and Hispanics. The data come from a recent nationwide survey in the United States (N = 2500). The findings reveal that, compared to Whites and Hispanics, Blacks have more positive image of God scores on all four measures. The data indicate that Blacks are also more likely than Whites and Hispanics to have strong positive emotions toward God. In contrast, consistent differences between Hispanics and Whites failed to emerge across all of the study measures.     

Relationships among Three Concepts of Authoritarianism in Adolescent Schoolchildren

Abstract

Classical authoritarianism has been proposed (Phillips, 1979b) as a central concept underlying all social attitudes. It has been associated with respectful attitudes to conventional authority and a desire to dominate others. Schoolchildren (= 117) attending high schools in Adelaide, Australia, completed measures of classical authoritarianism (Phillips, 1979a); directiveness, modified from Ray (1976); and attitudes toward institutional authority, adapted from Rigby and Rump (1981). Contrary to the proposal, intercorrelations between pairs of measures were small, with correlations significant for one sex only. It was concluded that the concept of classical authoritarianism has limited relevance to the social attitudes of children and that attitudes toward authority and the desire to dominate others are largely independent.     

On the distinction between the concept of God and conceptions of God

The starting-point is the distinction between concept and conception. Our conceptions of gold, for instance, are the different understandings we get when we hear the word ‘gold’ whereas the concept of gold consists in the scientific determination of what gold is. It depends on the context whether it is more reasonable to claim a concept or to look for fitting conceptions. By arguing against metaphysical realism and for non-metaphysical realism, I will elaborate on some philosophical reasons for dealing with conceptions instead of concepts of God, and secondly, I will discuss how such conceptions should be critically assessed. This article is an amended and enlarged version of a paper delivered at the conference on The Concept of God, arranged by the British Society for the Philosophy of Religion in Oxford, Great Britain, September 11–13, 2007.     

The patterning of agonistic behaviors among friends and acquaintances in programs for emotionally disturbed children

Peer conflicts in two age groups (toddler and preschool) of emotionally disturbed children were examined for developmental trends and for changes over time in an intervention program. Children were observed in their peer groups six times over the course of a year. Prosocial and agonistic social behaviors were coded in a continuous coding observational procedure. Friendship pairs were identified from the observational records and validated by teacher reports. It was hypothesized that agonistic responses to both prosocial and agonistic bids would decrease over time and that friendships would facilitate conflict resolution and conflict avoidance in the emotionally disturbed children. Agonistic responses to agonistic bids decreased over time for all children. Older acquaintances responded to prosocial bids with agonistic responses. Friendship relationships facilitated conflict resolution and avoidance skills in preschool-age but not toddler-age friends. The results are discussed in terms of their implications for intervention.     

Use of mental health services among severely emotionally disturbed children and adolescents in San Francisco

This study examined the mental health services available to severely emotionally disturbed children and adolescents in San Francisco. Social, familial, developmental, and clinical data—as well as service use histories—on 192 youths were collected. Results indicated high levels of family dysfunction, physical and sexual abuse, and neglect in the total study population. The study also identified case history and demographic factors that were associated with repeated psychiatric inpatient hospitalizationand high annual rates of change in residential placement. These factors included being male, older, non-English-speaking, and having a history of physical and sexual abuse. The impact of the service system on the lives and course of illness of these youth is discussed and future directions for research are suggested.