Personality and Social Psychology Review current issue

Why Does Religiosity Persist?

Sedikides, C. — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 10:22:37 PST

Blaming God for Our Pain: Human Suffering and the Divine Mind

Gray, K., Wegner, D. M. — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 10:22:37 PST

Believing in God requires not only a leap of faith but also an extension of people’s normal capacity to perceive the minds of others. Usually, people perceive minds of all kinds by trying to understand their conscious experience (what it is like to be them) and their agency (what they can do). Although humans are perceived to have both agency and experience, humans appear to see God as possessing agency, but not experience. God’s unique mind is due, the authors suggest, to the uniquely moral role He occupies. In this article, the authors propose that God is seen as the ultimate moral agent, the entity people blame and praise when they receive anomalous harm and help. Support for this proposition comes from research on mind perception, morality, and moral typecasting. Interestingly, although people perceive God as the author of salvation, suffering seems to evoke even more attributions to the divine.

Religiosity as Self-Enhancement: A Meta-Analysis of the Relation Between Socially Desirable Responding and Religiosity

Sedikides, C., Gebauer, J. E. — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 10:22:37 PST

In a meta-analysis, the authors test the theoretical formulation that religiosity is a means for self-enhancement. The authors operationalized self-enhancement as socially desirable responding (SDR) and focused on three facets of religiosity: intrinsic, extrinsic, and religion-as-quest. Importantly, they assessed two moderators of the relation between SDR and religiosity. Macro-level culture reflected countries that varied in degree of religiosity (from high to low: United States, Canada, United Kingdom). Micro-level culture reflected U.S. universities high (Christian) versus low (secular) on religiosity. The results were generally consistent with the theoretical formulation. Both macro-level and micro-level culture moderated the relation between SDR and religiosity: This relation was more positive in samples that placed higher value on religiosity (United States > Canada > United Kingdom; Christian universities > secular universities). The evidence suggests that religiosity is partly in the service of self-enhancement.

Religious Belief as Compensatory Control

Kay, A. C., Gaucher, D., McGregor, I., Nash, K. — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 10:22:37 PST

The authors review experimental evidence that religious conviction can be a defensive source of compensatory control when personal or external sources of control are low. They show evidence that (a) belief in religious deities and secular institutions can serve as external forms of control that can compensate for manipulations that lower personal control and (b) religious conviction can also serve as compensatory personal control after experimental manipulations that lower other forms of personal or external control. The authors review dispositional factors that differentially orient individuals toward external or personal varieties of compensatory control and conclude that compensatory religious conviction can be a flexible source of personal and external control for relief from the anxiety associated with random and uncertain experiences.

Religion as Attachment: Normative Processes and Individual Differences

Granqvist, P., Mikulincer, M., Shaver, P. R. — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 10:22:37 PST

The authors review findings from the psychology of religion showing that believers’ perceived relationships with God meet the definitional criteria for attachment relationships. They also review evidence for associations between aspects of religion and individual differences in interpersonal attachment security and insecurity. They focus on two developmental pathways to religion. The first is a "compensation" pathway involving distress regulation in the context of insecure attachment and past experiences of insensitive caregiving. Research suggests that religion as compensation might set in motion an "earned security" process for individuals who are insecure with respect to attachment. The second is a "correspondence" pathway based on secure attachment and past experiences with sensitive caregivers who were religious. The authors also discuss conceptual limitations of a narrow religion-as-attachment model and propose a more inclusive framework that accommodates concepts such as mindfulness and "nonattachment" from nontheistic religions such as Buddhism and New Age spirituality.

Religiosity as Identity: Toward an Understanding of Religion From a Social Identity Perspective

Ysseldyk, R., Matheson, K., Anisman, H. — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 10:22:37 PST

As a social identity anchored in a system of guiding beliefs and symbols, religion ought to serve a uniquely powerful function in shaping psychological and social processes. Religious identification offers a distinctive "sacred" worldview and "eternal" group membership, unmatched by identification with other social groups. Thus, religiosity might be explained, at least partially, by the marked cognitive and emotional value that religious group membership provides. The uniqueness of a positive social group, grounded in a belief system that offers epistemological and ontological certainty, lends religious identity a twofold advantage for the promotion of well-being. However, that uniqueness may have equally negative impacts when religious identity itself is threatened through intergroup conflict. Such consequences are illustrated by an examination of identities ranging from religious fundamentalism to atheism. Consideration of religion’s dual function as a social identity and a belief system may facilitate greater understanding of the variability in its importance across individuals and groups.

Religion in the Face of Uncertainty: An Uncertainty-Identity Theory Account of Religiousness

Hogg, M. A., Adelman, J. R., Blagg, R. D. — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 10:22:37 PST

The authors characterize religions as social groups and religiosity as the extent to which a person identifies with a religion, subscribes to its ideology or worldview, and conforms to its normative practices. They argue that religions have attributes that make them well suited to reduce feelings of self-uncertainty. According to uncertainty-identity theory, people are motivated to reduce feelings of uncertainty about or reflecting on self; and identification with groups, particularly highly entitative groups, is a very effective way to reduce uncertainty. All groups provide belief systems and normative prescriptions related to everyday life. However, religions also address the nature of existence, invoking sacred entities and associated rituals and ceremonies. They are entitative groups that provide a moral compass and rules for living that pervade a person’s life, making them particularly attractive in times of uncertainty. The authors document data supporting their analysis and discuss conditions that transform religiosity into religious zealotry and extremism.

A Terror Management Analysis of the Psychological Functions of Religion

Wed, 20 Jan 2010 10:22:37 PST

From a terror management theory (TMT) perspective, religion serves to manage the potential terror engendered by the uniquely human awareness of death by affording a sense of psychological security and hope of immortality. Although secular beliefs can also serve a terror management function, religious beliefs are particularly well suited to mitigate death anxiety because they are all encompassing, rely on concepts that are not easily disconfirmed, and promise literal immortality. Research is reviewed demonstrating that mortality salience produces increased belief in afterlife, supernatural agency, human ascension from nature, and spiritual distinctions between mind and body. The social costs and benefits of religious beliefs are considered and compared to those of secular worldviews. The terror management functions of, and benefits and costs associated with, different types of religious orientation, such as intrinsic religiosity, quest, and religious fundamentalism, are then examined. Finally, the TMT analysis is compared to other accounts of religion.

Why Religion's Burdens Are Light: From Religiosity to Implicit Self-Regulation

Koole, S. L., McCullough, M. E., Kuhl, J., Roelofsma, P. H. M. P. — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 10:22:37 PST

To maintain religious standards, individuals must frequently endure aversive or forsake pleasurable experiences. Yet religious individuals on average display higher levels of emotional well-being compared to nonreligious individuals. The present article seeks to resolve this paradox by suggesting that many forms of religion may facilitate a self-regulatory mode that is flexible, efficient, and largely unconscious. In this implicit mode of self-regulation, religious individuals may be able to strive for high standards and simultaneously maintain high emotional well-being. A review of the empirical literature confirmed that religious stimuli and practices foster implicit self-regulation, particularly among individuals who fully internalized their religion’s standards. The present work suggests that some seemingly irrational aspects of religion may have important psychological benefits by promoting implicit self-regulation.

Religiousness as a Cultural Adaptation of Basic Traits: A Five-Factor Model Perspective

Saroglou, V. — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 10:22:38 PST

Individual differences in religiousness can be partly explained as a cultural adaptation of two basic personality traits,Agreeableness and Conscientiousness. This argument is supported by a meta-analysis of 71 samples (N = 21,715) from 19 countries and a review of the literature on personality and religion. Beyond variations in effect magnitude as a function of moderators, the main personality characteristics of religiousness (Agreeableness and Conscientiousness) are consistent across different religious dimensions, contexts (gender, age, cohort, and country), and personality measures, models, and levels, and they seem to predict religiousness rather than be influenced by it. The copresence of Agreeableness and Conscientiousness sheds light on other explanations of religiousness, its distinctiveness from related constructs, its implications for other domains, and its adaptive functions.

Why Don't We Practice What We Preach? A Meta-Analytic Review of Religious Racism

Hall, D. L., Matz, D. C., Wood, W. — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 10:22:38 PST

A meta-analytic review of past research evaluated the link between religiosity and racism in the United States since the Civil Rights Act. Religious racism partly reflects intergroup dynamics. That is, a strong religious in-group identity was associated with derogation of racial out-groups. Other races might be treated as out-groups because religion is practiced largely within race, because training in a religious in-group identity promotes general ethnocentrism, and because different others appear to be in competition for resources. In addition, religious racism is tied to basic life values of social conformity and respect for tradition. In support, individuals who were religious for reasons of conformity and tradition expressed racism that declined in recent years with the decreased societal acceptance of overt racial discrimination. The authors failed to find that racial tolerance arises from humanitarian values, consistent with the idea that religious humanitarianism is largely expressed to in-group members. Only religious agnostics were racially tolerant.

Beyond Beliefs: Religions Bind Individuals Into Moral Communities

Graham, J., Haidt, J. — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 10:22:38 PST

Social psychologists have often followed other scientists in treating religiosity primarily as a set of beliefs held by individuals. But, beliefs are only one facet of this complex and multidimensional construct. The authors argue that social psychology can best contribute to scholarship on religion by being relentlessly social. They begin with a social-functionalist approach in which beliefs, rituals, and other aspects of religious practice are best understood as means of creating a moral community. They discuss the ways that religion is intertwined with five moral foundations, in particular the group-focused "binding" foundations of Ingroup/loyalty, Authority/respect, Purity/sanctity. The authors use this theoretical perspective to address three mysteries about religiosity, including why religious people are happier, why they are more charitable, and why most people in the world are religious.