Public religious activities,stress, and mental well-being in the United States: the role of religious reframing in coping

Religious reframing is applying religious beliefs to an assessment of stressful personal situations. If public religious activities (e.g., religious volunteering) meet the necessary criteria to enable religious reframing, they may serve to limit (or “buffer”) the negative impact of stressors (e.g., family conflict) on mental well-being. Based on this dynamic, two out of three public religious activities (i.e., religious volunteering and religious group activities, but not religious service attendance) were predicted to buffer stress based on their capacity to enable religious reframing. Predictions were supported by hierarchical linear regressions using data for Americans aged 40 and older (N?=?2579). This research proposes a framework for using religious reframing as the basis for making predictions about relative stress-buffering performances. It also finds that religious service attendance – the most common form of public religious involvement – does not enable religious reframing to the point of effectuating stress buffering.     

Fostering critical religious thinking in multicultural education for teacher education

Religious diversity as a consequence of global immigration has become a cultural phenomenon of pluralism in society. The fear of indoctrination and the desire for religious freedom fuel the debate on whether to remove religion from school education. Freire’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed offers a positive perspective on the debate by calling attention to the pedagogy of religious education in the pursuit of religious freedom for all human beings. Rather than transferring religious knowledge to students, the challenge for religious education is to foster critical religious thinking in them. Unfortunately, many teachers lack the confidence to address religious issues, as well as lacking support in the professional development of critical religious thinking. Hence, this article proposes a tentative model for fostering critical religious thinking that might fit into a course in multicultural education for teachers.     

The changing dynamics of religious authority on Pakistani religious television

This paper analyses the production, ownership and control of Pakistani religious talk shows, which have emerged as a popular genre of religious programming, subsequent to the liberalisation of Pakistani media in 2002. Much scholarship has implicated the nexus between Islam and televisual media in enabling the fragmentation of religious authority, by altering ‘lay’ engagements with Islam and thereby eliciting wider participation in religious discourse. In contrast, this paper focuses on the changing terms of asserting religious authority in the newly liberalised media context. Based on an analysis of the innovative formats and modes of editorial control characterising contemporary religious shows, I posit the significance of religious talk shows in both altering the nature of scholarly participation in religious public debate, and subjecting featured scholars to non-scholarly interests and agendas. I argue that the latter two insights into the nature of religious authority on television are only accessible from a production-based perspective, which is crucial for evaluating the wider implications of broadcast media for religious authority.     

The Association between Religious Discrimination and Health: Disaggregating by Types of Discrimination Experiences,Religious Tradition,and Forms of Health

Research finds that experiences of religious discrimination are often associated with poorer health outcomes. However, there remain important questions to consider gaps, including whether religious discrimination has similar health impacts on religious minority groups and religious majority groups, whether religious discrimination is equally harmful for both mental and physical health, and whether specific types of discrimination have different impacts on health. Using survey data from a probability sample of U.S. adults and measures representing a variety of discrimination experience types, our analyses suggest that religious discrimination is indeed harmful for health, but that experiences of religious discrimination do not universally affect mental and physical health in the same ways. Rather than significant differences in the health impacts of religious discrimination across different religious groups, we find more variation in the health impacts of different types of experiences with discrimination. Further, we find that mental health is negatively impacted by a wider range of experiences with religious discrimination than physical health. These findings are in line with social psychological research on the differential health impacts of discrimination, and they highlight the importance of context in studies of the health effects of religious discrimination.     

Religious Homogamy and Marital Satisfaction in South Korea: Exploring Variations across Religious Groups

This study examines whether and how the association between religious homogamy (i.e., whether spouses have the same religious affiliation) and marital satisfaction varies across religious affiliations by utilizing a unique context that four large religious groups (i.e., Buddhists, Protestants, Catholics, and religious nones) coexist in South Korea. Our results show that while religious homogamy has a positive relationship with marital satisfaction among Protestants and Catholics, there is no such association among Buddhists. This study also reveals that higher levels of religious attendance intensify the positive relationship between religious homogamy and marital satisfaction only among Protestants. Moreover, religious heterogamy is positively associated with marital relationships among religious nones compared to religious homogamy. However, this pattern held only for religious nones who married Buddhists or Catholics. We discuss the implications of our findings for research on religion and marriage from cross-cultural perspectives.     

Multiple Belief Systems in Psychotherapy: The Effects of Religion and Professional Beliefs on Clinical Judgment

This study examined the effects of religious and professional beliefs on clinical judgment. Eighty-seven psychotherapists completed a religious belief survey and a professional belief survey, as well as a questionnaire concerning internal conflict between professional and religious beliefs. The subjects then read two brief vignettes, describing a religious and a non-religious patient, and rated the patients with regard to optimism or pessimism concerning responsiveness to treatment. The results showed that there was no significant relationship between religious and professional beliefs. However, the strength of religious beliefs predicted optimism for the religious patient. In addition, there was a significant interaction effect between strength of religious beliefs and strength of professional beliefs on clinical ratings.     

Parental Divorce,Parental Religious Characteristics,and Religious Outcomes in Adulthood

Parental divorce has been linked to religious outcomes in adulthood. Previous research, however, has not adequately accounted for parental religious characteristics, which may render the association spurious and/or moderate the relationship. Many studies also do not consider subsequent family context, namely, whether one's custodial parent remarries. Using pooled data from three waves of the General Social Survey, we examine the nature of the relationships among parental divorce, subsequent family structure, and religiosity in adulthood. Growing up in a single‐parent family—but not a stepparent family—is positively associated with religious disaffiliation and religious switching and negatively associated with regular religious service attendance. Accounting for parental religious characteristics, however, explains sizable proportions of these relationships. In fact, after accounting for parental religious affiliation and service attendance, growing up with a single parent does not have a significant effect on religious service attendance. Parental religiosity also moderates the relationship between growing up with a single parent and religious service attendance: being raised in a single‐parent home does have a negative effect on religious service attendance among adults who had two religiously involved parents. There is modest evidence of this moderating relationship for other religious outcomes. Implications of these findings are discussed.     

Religious Affiliation,Religious Service Attendance,and Mortality

Very few studies have examined the effects of both religious affiliation and religiosity on mortality at the same time, and studies employing multiple dimensions of religiosity other than religious attendance are rare. Using the newly created General Social Survey-National Death Index data, our report contributes to the religion and mortality literature by examining religious affiliation and religiosity at the same time. Compared to Mainline Protestants, Catholics, Jews, and other religious groups have lower risk of death, but Black Protestants, Evangelical Protestants, and even those with no religious affiliation are not different from Mainline Protestants. While our study is consistent with previous findings that religious attendance leads to a reduction in mortality, we did not find other religious measures, such as strength of religious affiliation, frequency of praying, belief in an afterlife, and belief in God to be associated with mortality. We also find interaction effects between religious affiliation and attendance. The lowest mortality of Jews and other religious groups is more apparent for those with lower religious attendance. Thus, our result may emphasize the need for other research to focus on the effects of religious group and religious attendance on mortality at the same time.     

Religion and Anti-Immigration Sentiments in Context: Field Studies in Jerusalem

ABSTRACT

Political and social changes in the past decade have rendered questions about religion and immigration more salient than ever. However, we know very little about the potential impact of religion as it operates in the real world on attitudes toward immigrants. In this investigation, we tested whether and how contextual religious cues in the public sphere might affect tolerance toward immigrants. In two studies, we compared the effects of a religious and a secular context (Study 1: religious location; Study 2: religious attire) on attitudes toward Jewish immigrants (i.e., a religious ingroup) and non-Jewish immigrants (i.e., a religious outgroup). Across studies, contextual religious cues predicted ingroup favoritism, as expressed by less social rejection toward religious ingroups and less support for anti-immigration policies affecting religious ingroups. However, contextual religious cues were unrelated to anti-immigration attitudes toward religious outgroups. In Study 2, these patterns were moderated by participants’ religiosity, such that they were found among more (but not fewer) religious participants. These findings extend prior laboratory findings and shed light on how religion influences attitudes toward immigration in rich and complex real environments.     

Cooperative Coalitions on the Religious Right and Left: Considering the Resilience of Sectarianism

Theory in the sociology of religion suggests that a prerequisite for cooperative coalitions among religious groups on political matters is a decline in sectarianism. In analyses of survey data I show that sectarianism has receded for the religious left but not the religious right. Groups that would comprise the religious right are less likely to want the other conservative religious groups to have an influence on public opinion, while groups on the left are less opposed to other liberal groups having influence. It is particularly clear that conservative Protestants are wary of the influence of Catholics. I also conduct exploratory analyses to examine who, among the members of the religious groups who would comprise the religious right, is more sectarian. I find that while demographics are largely nondeterminative, those who are supportive of religiously-based politics are the least sectarian.     

Predictors and Outcomes of Experiences Deemed Religious: A Longitudinal Investigation

The two studies reported here revised Hunt's (1972) LAM (Literal, Anti-Literal, Mythological) Scale to include a Metaphorical dimension. The first study investigated the relationship between preference for literal versus metaphorical interpretations of religious language and structural levels of religious thinking. As predicted, participants who preferred a literal interpretation of religious statements gave evidence of a low developed structure of religious judgment. The predicted relationship between preference for metaphorical interpretations and style of religious thinking was not found. The second study compared samples of participants scoring highest on the Literal and the Metaphorical subscales. Literal participants scored lower on imaginative thinking and made greater use of religious language in an objectifying manner than did metaphorical participants. The meaning of these data for mature religious thinking is considered.     

The Role of Social Cognition in the Religious Fundamentalism‐Prejudice Relationship

The study examines the indirect effects of religious fundamentalism on prejudice through cognitive style and fear of invalidity. Undergraduates (n= 199) completed measures of religious fundamentalism, homophobia, modern racism, hostile and benevolent sexism, need for cognition, need for structure, preference for consistency, and fear of invalidity. Need for cognition partially mediated the relationship between religious fundamentalism and both homophobia and benevolent sexism. Preference for consistency partially mediated the relationship between religious fundamentalism and hostile sexism. The indirect effect of religious fundamentalism on modern racism through preference for consistency approached statistical significance. The interaction between need for structure and fear of invalidity partially mediated the relationship between religious fundamentalism and both homophobia and hostile sexism, with individuals high in need for structure and low in fear of invalidity having higher religious fundamentalism and prejudice.     

Thinking Creatively About Religion: Belief-Related Differences

Writers (Chisholm, 1996) and theorists (Fateux, 1995a, 1995b) have discussed the relationship between religion and creativity, however, until the present, empirical studies examining this relationship have not been done. The current study used a psychometric approach to investigate the relationships among religiosity, religious motivation and creative thought about religious issues for two different religious groups. Results showed few relationships between self-perceived religiosity, religious motivation and religious creative thought. A comparison between two religious populations showed that the Mormon group scored higher in religiosity and religious motivation, but lower in creativity than the non-Mormon group. Future studies need to expand this type of work to other religious groups, and focus more on gender and age-related differences related to religious creativity.     

Fear of Death and Supernatural Beliefs: Developing a New Supernatural Belief Scale to Test the Relationship

Fear of death features in both historical and contemporary theories of religion, but the relationship between death anxiety and religious belief is still ambiguous, largely due to the use of inappropriate or imprecise measures. The current studies therefore aimed to develop a valid, targeted measure of respondents' tendency towards religious belief, the ‘Supernatural Belief Scale’ (SBS), and to use the SBS to examine the relation between death anxiety and religious belief. Results indicate that the SBS shows high reliability and convergent validity and that its relation to death anxiety depends on participants' religious identification: ‘religious’ participants fear death less the stronger their religious beliefs, whereas ‘non‐religious’ participants are more inclined towards religious belief the more they fear death. These studies contribute a new measurement tool for research on religious belief and provide a starting point for an experimental integration of discrepant research findings. Copyright © 2013 European Association of Personality Psychology     

The devil is in the local: provincial religious legislation in China, 2005–2012

Promulgated in the wake of the Regulations on Religious Affairs, the new set of 20 provincial regulations in China often adopt provisions in the central government statute, prescribing a more benign relationship between religion and the state, defining religious affairs narrowly to exclude internal administration issues of religious communities, stipulating protection of religious freedom before that of state authority, adopting a regulatory rather than administrative regime, removing the annual re-certification requirement of religious venues, increasing the institutional autonomy of religious communities in personnel matters and formation, and transferring the supervisory powers from state agencies to religious communities. At the same time, they also circumscribe the interventionist powers of the state, stipulating bureaucratic response time limits, publicising transparent procedures and specific norms for approving and disapproving religious activities, and not requiring religious communities to accept Party leadership. Despite their overall progressive direction, however, some benevolent central government regulations have not been incorporated by the new provincial regulations, notably those exempting religious communities from supporting state ideology, and those providing administrative appeal and judicial challenge for local government decisions on religious affairs.     

Religiosity and agency and communion: their relationship to religious judgmentalism

The present study is an introduction to the construct of religious judgmentalism, defined as a willingness to make religious or moral judgments of others based on a limited period of observation; the study offers a prediction about which individuals will engage in such judgmental behavior. It was predicted that agency motives would significantly predict religious judgmentalism in a religious population but that communion motives and intrinsic religiosity would moderate this effect. Overall, the findings supported these predictions. Agency motives were positively correlated with religious judgmentalism. Intrinsic religiosity predicted a general unwillingness to make religious evaluations of others. Both intrinsic religiosity and communion motives did moderate the effects of high agency motives. Specifically, increases in communion motive and intrinsic religiosity, at high levels of agency motives, significantly predicted lower scores for religious judgmentalism. These findings were conceptualized as preliminary evidence for the position that interpersonal motives, rather than religiousness or religious motivation, predict social intolerance and criticism in religious individuals.     

Period and Cohort Effects on Religious Nonaffiliation and Religious Disaffiliation: A Research Note

Period and cohort effects on reports of no religious preference and religious disaffiliation are estimated. Results show that by 2006, the probability of reporting no religious preference had risen to almost .16. Additionally, the growing proportion of Americans raised with no religious preference substantially influences the increase in reporting no religious preference. Two recently developed analysis techniques for disentangling period and cohort effects are used: intrinsic estimator models and cross‐classified, random‐effects models. Results show (1) period‐based increases in the probability of reporting no religious preference from 1990 to 2006, (2) across‐cohort increases in no religious preference beginning with those born in the 1940s, and (3) a decline in the likelihood of religious disaffiliation (being raised with a religious preference but currently reporting no religious preference) for those born in the 1960s and 1970s compared to those born between 1945 and 1959.     

Social,Political, and Institutional Constraints on Religious Pluralism in Central Asia

During the second half of the 1990s, many of the post-Soviet states, after a brief flirtation with a religious free market, began to approve laws that curtailed some of the freedoms acquired in the first flush of independence. The paper examines the ways in which the five Central Asian States have handled the issue of religious freedom. Although many of the initial demands for restrictions on religious pluralism came from leaders of 'traditional' religions, these arguments have been reinforced by other arguments. On the one hand, the urge to control religious diversity is a product of an old Soviet mentality, but it also reflects wider religious and political concerns. These encompass public anxieties about the activities of poorly understood religious movements, political manipulation of religious 'threats' to justify authoritarianism, and nationalist concerns about religious diversity as a threat to social stability and the nation-building process. This paper explores the growing pressures on religious pluralism in Central Asia (with special reference to the experience of Kyrgyzstan and Turkmenistan) focusing on the social, political, and institutional constraints that appear to be driving the revitalisation of state control over religious life.     

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.     

What are the impacts of religious diversity? A review of the methodological considerations and empirical findings of a research project on religious pluralisation in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany

In the first place, this article offers a brief insight into the state of contemporary research on religious diversity and some of its methodological problems. Second, a multi-dimensional model is suggested in order to measure religious diversity. Thus, one can distinguish between different degrees of diversity allowing one to examine the results obtained both for the field of religious communities and in terms of their social implications. In a third step, the first results of a research project on religious diversity in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany, and some of its impacts on the religious field are presented. One of the most important outcomes of this project is the finding that there is no evidence to support the thesis that religious diversity would lead to increased participation in religious organisations.