CHAPTER 5 - Social Change, Religious Movements, and Personality Adjustment: An Anthropological View

Abstract

This chapter focuses on the Chinese personality adjustment through the analysis of special religious cult movements among the Chinese on the island of Taiwan during the past 30 years. The chapter discusses the kinds of personalities and the functional adjustments of people who join the religious activities in various cult groups. The underlying philosophy is that religious beliefs and their related ritual activities can be considered symptoms of group reaction under the stresses of social change. From an analysis of 12 religious cult movements, including indigenous folk cults and foreign sects in Taiwan, a scheme was developed for interpreting personality adjustment traits among the Chinese in Taiwan. The chapter describes the religious cults in two categories: (1) indigenous folk cults, including group shamanism, individual shamanism, compatriot–territorial, I-Kuan-tao, En-Chu-Kung worship complex, and Hsuan–yuan Chiao, and (2) christian denominations, including the Assembly Hall, the True Jesus church, the Unification church, the Children of God, Jehovah's Witnesses, and the New Testament church.