Belief in supernatural agents in the face of death

Four studies examined whether awareness of mortality intensifies belief in supernatural agents among North Americans. In Studies 1 and 2, mortality salience led to more religiosity, stronger belief in God, and in divine intervention. In Studies 3 and 4, mortality salience increased supernatural agent beliefs even when supernatural agency was presented in a culturally alien context (divine Buddha in Study 3, Shamanic spirits in Study 4). The latter effects occurred primarily among the religiously affiliated, who were predominantly Christian. Implications for the role of supernatural agent beliefs in assuaging mortality concerns are discussed.     

Disentangling the belief in God and cognitive rigidity/flexibility components of religiosity to predict racial and value-violating prejudice: A Post-Critical Belief Scale analysis

Past research indicates that being religious is associated with prejudice toward racial and value-violating out-groups. However, this past research treated religiosity as a unidimensional construct without taking into account how different components of religiosity—belief in a higher power and the rigidity/flexibility of religious beliefs—are associated with measures of prejudice. Two studies examined the relationship between these two components of religiosity, as measured by the Post-Critical Beliefs Scale, and racial (African Americans, Arabs) and value-violating prejudices (atheists, gay men). As the flexibility of religious beliefs increased (literal vs. symbolic dimension), attitudes toward racial and value-violating out-groups became more positive (Study 1). As belief in God strengthened (exclusion vs. inclusion of transcendence dimension), attitudes toward value-violating out-groups became more negative. Study 2 demonstrated that these two components of religiosity fully mediated the relationship between general religiosity and prejudice toward African Americans, Arabs, and gay men and partially mediated the relationship between religiosity and prejudice toward atheists. Results are discussed in light of reexamining the conclusion that simply being religious is associated with prejudice.     

Faith and Agency: The Relationships Between Sense of Control,Socioeconomic Status,and Beliefs About God

An individual's sense of control varies with religiosity, but the direction of this relationship can change based on one's social status and one's image of God. Using data from the Baylor Religion Survey Wave V, our current study investigates how secure attachment to God, belief in a judgmental God, and belief in divine control are associated with sense of control. Our findings indicate that the type of religious belief explains when religion is positively or negatively related to the believers’ sense of control. And secure attachment to God and belief in divine control will compensate for social and economic deprivation. Still, belief in a judgmental God is negatively related to agency for believers across the stratification hierarchy. This indicates that a traditional fire-and-brimstone God is related to a lower sense of control, while more contemporary and individualized beliefs about God are connected to greater agency, especially for believers in need.     

Searching for certainty: Religious beliefs and intolerance toward value-violating groups

Religiosity has been consistently linked to prejudice toward a variety of outgroups. This article proposes that this is the case only when religiosity reflects a specific aspect of seeking guidance and security in daily practices and complex sociocultural norms. Outgroups that challenge the epistemic certainty that belief in God provides are rejected in an effort to protect this certainty. The results from two studies found that uncertainty avoidance was related to belief in God and this belief mediated the relationship between uncertainty avoidance and intolerance within the context of general human rights (Study 1), and the derogation of value-violating groups (e.g., homosexuals or followers of other religions) but not of groups that pose no threat to religious values (old or poor people) (Study 2). The interpretative dimension of religiosity (i.e., the way in which people process religious content) is not connected to security seeking, as reflected in the lack of a correlation with uncertainty avoidance and with different prejudice measures. The results are discussed in relation to past research on religiosity and prejudice, and suggest that for people who avoid uncertainty, only those types of religious beliefs that provide a sense of certainty are linked with intolerance toward value-violating groups.     

Explaining the Relationship between Religiosity and Political Participation: The Mediating Roles of Transcendent Accountability and Religiopolitical Awareness

Prior research tends to find a positive relationship between religiosity and political participation. Explanations of this relationship have focused mostly on religiosity-generated organizational resources (e.g., civic skills), while paying less attention to psychological resources. We simultaneously examined different aspects of religiosity (belief, behavior, and belonging) and political participation (electoral and nonelectoral) in a structural equation model with two psychological resources as mediators: (1) “transcendent accountability”—seeing oneself as responsible to God or a higher power for one's impact on other people and the environment, and (2) “religiopolitical awareness”—perceiving the influence of one's religion and/or spirituality on one's political views and activities. Results from analyzing survey data from a US representative sample showed that transcendent accountability and religiopolitical awareness, whether together or awareness only, mediated positive relationships between religiosity (belief, private and public behaviors, and membership) and political participation (voting and other political activity), highlighting key psychological motivators of political participation.     

Religiosity,spirituality, mental health,and mental health treatment outcomes in Australia: a systematic literature review

The relationship between religiosity and mental health is a relatively well-researched field within North America, covering numerous domains of religiosity, including: religion, spirituality, prayer, church attendance, church affiliation and belief in God or a higher power. Considering the Australian literature, there are few papers that explore these dimensions of religiosity and their relationship with health, and in particular, very little research into the field of religiosity and mental health. Using systematic literature review methods, this study explores the Australian research into relationships between religiosity, mental health, and treatment outcomes for psychiatric illness and suicidal behaviour.     

Religiosity,Afterlife Beliefs,and Bereavement Adjustment in Adulthood

SUMMARY

Research in gerontology and bereavement adjustment often fails to examine the effects of religiousness and beliefs in the afterlife on grief. It was hypothesized that religiosity and belief in life after death would play different roles for younger and older adults regarding bereavement adjustment. Sample characteristics suggested that the interaction effect between age and religiosity or age and belief in life after death on bereavement adjustment could not be tested. However, aspects of bereavement adjustment, in particular physical health and efforts to cope, were found to be influenced by age, religiosity, and cause of death. Implications and directions for future research and counseling are discussed.     

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.     

Unanswered Prayers: Religiosity and the God-Serving Bias

Two self-report experiments examined how religiosity affects attributions made for a target person’s death. Online adults (Study 1, N = 427) and undergraduate students (Study 2, N = 326) read about Chris who had a heart attack, used religious or health behaviors, and lived or died. Participants made attributions to Chris and God (both studies), and reported their emotions (Study 2). Participants made more attributions to Chris when he lived than when he died, but only when he used health behaviors. The highly religious made more attributions to God, but not when Chris used religious behaviors and died (the God-serving bias); they reported the most positive emotions when Chris lived after using religious behaviors (the Hallelujah effect). Directions for future research in terms of implicit religious beliefs and normative evaluations of religion are discussed.     

Attitude toward Christianity,sexual orientation,and parental religiosity in a sample of Italian adolescents

Literature suggests that several demographic variables are linked with religiosity in adolescence, such as gender, age and parental religiosity. The sample consisted of 910 young people (53% female) between 14 and 19 years of age, attending secular secondary schools in Rome, Italy. They self-identified as heterosexual adolescents (91.6%), and lesbian/gay (LG) adolescents (8.4%). High scores of positive attitudes toward God, Jesus, the Bible, prayer and church were associated with female gender, higher father’s religiosity, and higher mother’s religiosity, but not with age of the participants. As expected, heterosexual orientation was associated with a more positive attitude toward Christianity, controlling for sex, age, and parental religiosity.     

Religiosity and psychological well-being

The aim of the present study was to investigate the relationship between religiosity and psychological well-being in a sample of Greek Orthodox Christians. Previous research has documented that personal devotion, participation in religious activities, and religious salience are positively associated with different criteria of psychological well-being. The sample (83 men and 280 women) with an age range from 18 to 48 years, was strongly skewed with respect to sex (77% female) and education level (95% were university students or university graduates). Religiosity was operationalized as church attendance, frequency of prayer and belief salience. In addition, a single item referring to beliefs about God was used. Depression, anxiety, loneliness, and general life satisfaction were selected as dependent variables because they reflect important dimensions of psychological well-being. Preliminary analyses showed that sex was significantly related to the three religiosity variables (church attendance, frequency of prayer, belief salience), with women being more religious than men. Consistent with previous research, correlations suggested that church attendance and belief salience were associated with better life satisfaction. The results of hierarchical regression analysis showed a significant positive association between anxiety and frequency of personal prayer. Finally, personal beliefs about God did not seem to relate to any of the psychological well-being measures. The results of the present study partially support the hypothesized association between religiosity and psychological well-being.     

The Impact of a Breast Cancer Diagnosis on Religious/Spiritual Beliefs and Practices in the UK

The use of religious/spiritual resources may increase when dealing with the stress of a cancer diagnosis. However, there has been very little research conducted into changes in religious/spiritual beliefs and practices as a result of a cancer diagnosis outside the USA. The aim of this study was to examine the impact of a breast cancer diagnosis on patients’ religious/spiritual beliefs and practices in the UK where religious practice is different. The study used two methods. One compared the religious/spiritual beliefs and practices of 202 patients newly diagnosed with breast cancer with those of a control group of healthy women (n = 110). The other examined patients’ perceived change in religious/spiritual beliefs and practices at the time of surgery with those in the year prior to surgery. The aspects of religiousness/spirituality assessed were: levels of religiosity/spirituality, strength of faith, belief in God as well as private and public practices. Patient’s perceived their belief in God, strength of faith and private religious/spiritual practices to have significantly increased shortly after surgery compared with the year prior to surgery. However, there were no significant differences in religious/spiritual beliefs and practices between patients and healthy participants. Change scores demonstrated both a reduction and an increase in religious/spiritual beliefs and practices. Although belief in God, strength of faith and private religious/spiritual practices were perceived by patients to be significantly higher after their cancer diagnosis, no significant differences in religious/spiritual beliefs and practices were found between the cancer group at the time of surgery and the control group. Different methodologies appear to produce different results and may explain contradictions in past US studies. Limitations of this study are discussed and suggestions for future research are made.     

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.     

Uncertainty and prejudice: The role of religiosity in shaping group attitudes

Past research indicates that being religious is frequently motivated by the need to avoid uncertainty and associated with prejudice against value‐violating groups. The present research clarifies these previous findings and shows for the first time a causal link between a sense of uncertainty and group attitudes through religiosity and the perception of the target group's mindset. Study 1 demonstrates that belief in God is associated with uncertainty avoidance and increases prejudice against value‐violating groups, but simultaneously increases positive attitudes towards value‐consistent groups. Study 2 demonstrates experimentally that a sense of uncertainty shapes intergroup attitudes when the relationship is mediated through the belief in God and the perception that a target group actually violated perceivers' values. The results corroborate and broaden previous findings on religiosity, ambiguity avoidance, and prejudice and, for the first time, show a causal link between a sense of uncertainty and attitudes towards value‐violating and value‐consistent groups.     

It is our destiny to die: The effects of mortality salience and culture‐priming on fatalism and karma belief

The current study explores whether Asians use culture‐specific belief systems to defend against their death anxiety. The effects of mortality salience (MS) and cultural priming on Taiwanese beliefs in fatalism and karma were investigated. Study 1 showed that people believe in fatalism and karma more following MS compared with the control condition. Study 2 found that the effect of MS on fatalism belief was stronger when Taiwanese were exposed to an Eastern cultural context than to a Western cultural context. However, a matched sample of Western participants did not show increased fatalism belief after either a West‐ or East‐prime task. The present research provides evidence that Asians may use some culture‐specific beliefs, particularly fatalism belief, to cope with their death awareness.     

Faith versus practice: different bases for religiosity judgments by Jews and Protestants

Jewish tradition is focused much more on religious practice than on religious belief, whereas various denominations of Christianity focus about equally on religious practice and on faith. We explored whether this difference in dogma affects how Jews and Protestants judge religiosity. In Study 1, we showed that Jews and Protestants rated practice equally important in being religious, while Protestants rated belief more important than did Jews. In Study 2, Jewish participants' self‐rated religiosity was predicted by their extent of practice but not knowledge of Judaism or religious beliefs. In contrast, in Study 3, Protestants' self‐rated religiosity was predicted both by their extent of practice and belief, but not knowledge. In all, the results show that Jews and Protestants view the importance of practice in being religious similarly, but that belief is more important for Protestants. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The terror management function of Orthodox Jewish religiosity: a religious culture approach

Terror management theory proposes that humans, able to envision their inevitable death, develop worldviews opposing this debilitating fear. One TMT implication of considerable interest is its connection with the formation of religious belief. Taking a religious culture approach, this study measured the effect of death reminders on self-reported religiosity among 131 Orthodox Jews, and examined if Baal Teshuva—“returnees” differed from individuals born into Orthodox Judaism. Results showed that death reminders had a varied effect—both Baal Teshuva and those with intra-Orthodox religious change reported higher levels of intrinsic religiosity, while those without change reported lower. Explanations for these intra-faith differences relate to attachment theory and possible “Compensation” among those with religious change.     

A Comparison of Christians’ Concepts of Jesus Christ and God

In the god concept literature, little research has been conducted on how people think about and relate specifically to Jesus Christ. This study addresses the extent to which Christians distinguish between Jesus and God in terms of their concepts of Jesus and God, the pathways they use to connect with Jesus and God, and the benefits they seek and receive from Jesus and God. The study also tests whether participants’ concepts of Jesus have unique predictive power for psychological, social, and spiritual criterion variables after controlling for their concepts of God. The sample includes 165 college students and 107 church attendees who self-identified as Christians. Results indicate that although most participants view Jesus and God as being similar to each other, they perceive Jesus to be warmer but less transcendent and stern than God. Including participants’ concepts of Jesus in hierarchical multiple regressions accounted for significant additional variance after controlling for their concepts of God in predicting participants’ negative affect, social justice attitudes, spiritual emotions, and Christian orthodoxy. Participants generally used various pathways more to connect with God than with Jesus, and they reported seeking and receiving many benefits more from God than from Jesus. These results suggest that future research on god concepts among Christians ought to include separate measures of Jesus concepts and God concepts.     

What Lies Beyond: Theory and Measurement of Afterdeath Beliefs

Previous attempts to assess postmortem continuation beliefs have been hampered by unidimensional approaches and a lack of theory. We argue that core variations in postmortem beliefs can be described in terms of the fate of consciousness (awareness), identity (memory, personality), and physicality (the body) beyond the death event. Based on this theoretical framework, we constructed the Afterdeath Belief Scale, which measures five variations in belief: Annihilation, Disembodied Spirit, Spiritual Embodiment, Reincarnation, and Bodily Resurrection. We also assessed the extent to which people regard their beliefs and behaviors as efficacious in determining their fate beyond death. These new measures proved to be meaningfully related to self-reported religious affiliation, religiosity, spirituality, death concerns, mystical experience, and attitudes toward embodied existence. Implications for future research are discussed.     

Religion as culture: religious individualism and collectivism among american catholics, jews, and protestants

We propose the theory that religious cultures vary in individualistic and collectivistic aspects of religiousness and spirituality. Study 1 showed that religion for Jews is about community and biological descent but about personal beliefs for Protestants. Intrinsic and extrinsic religiosity were intercorrelated and endorsed differently by Jews, Catholics, and Protestants in a pattern that supports the theory that intrinsic religiosity relates to personal religion, whereas extrinsic religiosity stresses community and ritual (Studies 2 and 3). Important life experiences were likely to be social for Jews but focused on God for Protestants, with Catholics in between (Study 4). We conclude with three perspectives in understanding the complex relationships between religion and culture.