Researcher Degrees of Freedom in the Psychology of Religion

ABSTRACT

There is a push in psychology toward more transparent practices, stemming partially as a response to the replication crisis. We argue that the psychology of religion should help lead the way toward these new, more transparent practices to ensure a robust and dynamic subfield. One of the major issues that proponents of Open Science practices hope to address is researcher degrees of freedom (RDF). We pre-registered and conducted a systematic review of the 2017 issues from three psychology of religion journals. We aimed to identify the extent to which the psychology of religion has embraced Open Science practices and the role of RDF within the subfield. We found that many of the methodologies that help to increase transparency, such as pre-registration, have yet to be adopted by those in the subfield. In light of these findings, we present recommendations for addressing the issue of transparency in the psychology of religion and outline how to move toward these new Open Science practices.     

DOMINEERINGNESS AND DOMINANCE: A TRANSACTIONAL VIEW

This paper attempts to clarify the conceptualization of interpersonal power dimensions and offers a relational-level definition and measure of dominance. A distinction is made between control movements indicating domineering message behavior and control patterns of dominance. The findings support (1) that domineeringness and dominance are separate control variables, and (2) that different dyadic patterns of satisfaction and interaction style are associated with these two dimensions.