Contemporary Conversions: Compensatory Needs Or Self-Growth Motives?

Abstract

Many studies on which recent reviews of the empirical literature on conversion are based examine converts to new religious movements or new forms of spirituality outside the main religious traditions. Conversion to the latter seems to be somewhat neglected in recent decades. There is also a need to integratein the same studymeasures relative to the compensatory needs hypothesis and measures relative to the self-growth motives hypothesis. This chapter addresses these issues by focusing on converts to mainstream religions (Buddhism, Catholicism, Islam, Judaism, Orthodoxy, and Protestantism). Measures of psychological constructs that reflect both compensatory needs and self-growth motives were administered to converts and results were compared with data from the general population. The chapter analyzes whether differences emerge between converts who were raised in another religious faith and converts who did not grow up in a religious family context. Keywords: mainstream religions; psychological constructs; religious conversion; self-growth motives