Abstract
This deliberately essayistic paper deals with strengths of and limits to cultural psychology, especially in its application to research on religion. It is presented as only one possible approach, composite in itself and drawing on a variety of theories, insights, methods and techniques, but working on one of the fundamental aspects of human psychological functioning, and therefore as indispensable to efforts to explore and understand anything called religious as any other psychological approach may be. Furthermore, the paper makes an explicit plea for an interdisciplinary approach to psychology. Whether researchers will employ cultural psychology or another approaches from contemporary psychological sciences will depend on their personal preferences, their professional training, the type of context they are functioning and hopefully also on the kind of phenomenon pointed out to them as religious by a certain (sub)culture.
Highlights
This deliberately essayistic paper deals with strengths of and limits to cultural psychology, especially in its application to research on religion
It is presented as only one possible approach, composite in itself and drawing on a variety of theories, insights, methods and techniques, but working on one of the fundamental aspects of human psychological functioning, and as indispensable to efforts to explore and understand anything called religious as any other psychological approach may be
Whether researchers will employ cultural psychology or another approaches from contemporary psychological sciences will depend on their personal preferences, their professional training, the type of context they are functioning and hopefully on the kind of phenomenon pointed out to them as religious by a certainculture
Summary
The task set before us by the organizers of the present special issue is important, and one that receives too little attention from psychologists absorbed in the demanding business of their empirical research. An example from more recent psychology of religion would be the claim, presented by psychologist of personality Ralph Piedmont (1999), to have shown that the so-called Five-Factor Model of Personality (FFMP) needs to be enlarged in order to include “spirituality” as the sixth factor of personality This claim is consistent with a dominant tradition in classical Christian theology, rooted in the works of St. Augustine and other so-called Church Fathers, who taught that a desire, or an orientation towards “God”, is intrinsic to the human being, who would be religious by nature, so to say, and who would only be at rest, “whole”, fully human or phrased in what positive way ever, if living in accordance with divinely-eternal destination. Leaving aside perspectives from Religionswissenschaft or even Theology, and restricting ourselves to psychology, let us remember that the field between the poles “psychology” and “religion” is huge and complex, “psychology of religion” being just a very minor part of it
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