ABSTRACT Religion prosociality hypothesis, which predicts that religion promotes prosocial behaviors, has been verified by previous empirical research. However, the religion in the previous studies investigating Eastern religions has often been examined as a single and unified concept. In the current study, based on a few studies in the context of Western religions, we considered the religiosity as a complex construct and investigated the influence of Buddhist religiosity and primed Buddhist and Christian aspects on prosociality through two studies. In Study 1, participants’ prosocial tendencies were measured by the Prosocial Tendencies Measure (PTM). In Study 2, we employed a subliminal priming task to investigate the effects of aspects of Buddhist and Christian traditions on prosociality measured by self-reports with explicit requests for donating money amount in nonbelievers. The results of Study 1 revealed that Buddhist believers exhibited more prosocial tendencies than nonbelievers, and female participants exhibited more prosocial tendencies than male participants. Study 2’s results showed that the Buddhist and Christian priming groups exhibited more prosocial intentions than the neutral priming group. Furthermore, for the group primed with the Buddhist words, the aspect of the spiritual activated more prosocial intentions than did the aspect of the agents and institutional. Taken together, these findings suggest that Buddhism, especially the spiritual component of Buddhism, increased prosocial tendencies.

ABSTRACT Prior research indicated the association between religious concepts and perceptions of vertical positions may exist in Tibetan Buddhism. This study extends this view by investigating whether such an evaluation tendency also adapts to Chinese Buddhism. We employed explicit/implicit measures involving 305 participants in two studies. In Study 1, we used forced-choice method to explore whether the Chinese Buddhist-related concepts were represented by vertical spatial metaphors explicitly. In study 2a/b, we used the IAT to assess the religion-vertical relationship implicitly, and also exploring whether there are differences between believers and nonbelievers. Study 1 revealed that all participants tended to put Buddhist-related concepts on the above vertical position, but believers were more inclined to put religious concepts on the above vertical position than nonbelievers. Study 2a/b showed that participants were faster at categorizing Buddhist-related words when they were paired with up-related words and Devil-related words when they were paired with down-related words. However, there was a split between believers and nonbelievers from the results of the analysis of variance. These results revealed that the association of Buddhist-related concepts and vertical spatial metaphoric terms exists in Han population, and intensity of the association was moderated by the strength of belief in Buddhism.

ABSTRACT Religiosity in early childhood is an important, but underexamined, area of research, particularly in terms of parental influence. This study examines potential “transmission enhancers” in the association between parental and children’s religiosity in early childhood, ages 3 to 6. Overall, we hypothesized that parental religiosity will be positively associated with children’s religiosity. We examined religiosity for 235 dyads from Roman Catholic families through three dimensions: religious social identity, prayer, and God concept. We further tested four potential moderators which can enhance the association between parental and child religiosity, i.e. transmission. We considered one child variable (i.e. child age) and three familial variables (i.e. internalized parental religious motivation, active parental-child involvement, and credibility-enhancing displays). We expected that child age, internalized parental religious motivation, active parental-child involvement, and credibility-enhancing displays would strengthen the association between parental and children’s religiosity. However, for parents with lower religiosity, we hypothesized that none of these variables would moderate the link to child religiosity. Multivariate regression analysis of moderators with interactions did not show a significant effect of transmission enhancers but highlighted the importance of the child’s age as a predictor of children’s religiosity. Implications of transmission enhancers in the context of family religiosity are discussed.

ABSTRACT Previous research has indicated that religiosity and engagement in faith practices are associated with increased task persistence. However, in this study, we sought to challenge this long-standing assumption by demonstrating that priming God-related concepts can actually lead to reduced task persistence in Taoism, a religion emphasizing passivity, calmness, and inaction. To investigate this theoretical perspective, we conducted two experimental studies using different behavioral measures of task persistence (anagram task and mirror-tracing task) and diverse religious priming techniques (the scrambled-sentence task and religious reading task). In Study 1, when Chinese Taoists were first reminded of God and then completed an unsolvable anagram task purported to measure the maturation of verbal abilities, they exhibited lower levels of task persistence than those in the neutral prime condition. In Study 2, we found that Taoist participants exposed to God-related primes spent less time on tracing a difficult geometric figures, indicating lower levels of task persistence. Across two studies, we replicated prior findings that exposure to God representations increased task persistence in Chinese Buddhists, who belong to a non-Abraham religious group. These results provided the first experimental evidence that activating thoughts of God may have divergent effects on task persistence in members of different religions.

ABSTRACT We conducted a Mendelian randomization study to evaluate the potential causal effects of attending religious groups on the prevalence of depression, generalized anxiety disorders, anxiety disorders, and suicide and self-harm. Data from the UK Biobank and the FinnGen project were processed by inverse variance weighting (IVW), weighted median, and MR-Egger regression methods. Despite certain pleiotropic risks, we found that attending religious groups was potentially associated with a reduced risk of anxiety disorders (OR = 0.213, p = .028). The pleiotropies were largely controlled and the effect on anxiety disorders became more significant in our sensitivity analysis (OR = 0.162; p = .006). Additionally, attending religious groups was associated with a reduced risk of suicide and self-harm (OR = 0.231, p = .0006). However, we did not observe any substantial protection against depression. In conclusion, our study adds to the existing literature and sheds light on the potential health benefits of religious activities from a novel perspective.

ABSTRACT The current investigation examined the role of religion in the experiences of single Polish adults and their mental health. Study 1 employed semistructured interviews, while Study 2 involved two quantitative assessments separated by a 1-month interval. Study 1 (N = 4) identified seven themes related to religion in the context of singlehood. Study 2 (N = 661; M = 32.69, SD = 6.90) revealed that negative religious coping mediated the links between singlehood boundary ambiguity, and anxiety, depression, and emotional and psychological well-being. A follow-up study (N = 319) showed that higher singlehood boundary ambiguity was related to higher negative religious coping, which was related to greater increases in later anxiety and depression. Singlehood boundary ambiguity appears to prompt single people to exhibit negative religious coping, which negatively affects their positive and negative mental health outcomes concurrently and amplifies the changes in their anxiety and depression over time.

ABSTRACT The scientific study of psychedelic, religious, spiritual, and mystical (PRSM) experiences can be advanced by applying culturally inclusive qualitative methodologies that illuminate the breadth and depth of individual experiences in a variety of contexts. To enrich the common core thesis of mysticism and offer insights that could contribute more generally to bridging the gap between psychedelic and religious experiences, the current study used a phenomenological approach to explore the structure and content of mystical experiences among Daoist practitioners. The sample included 19 highly experienced Daoist monks and nuns. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with orienting questions that were adapted from the theoretical framework of the modified common core thesis, which taps into eight broad categories of mystical experience (i.e. ego loss, timelessness and spaceless, unity, inner subjectivity, positive affect, sacredness, noetic quality, and ineffability). Thematic coding suggested two clusters of Daoist experiences, one featuring a group of themes comprising dissolution of self, unitary experiences, and bodily sensations, and the other group of themes including egress of spirit and resonance with divinities and spirits. The derived themes corresponded to some prescriptions of the common core thesis, yet extended the theory with unique themes – egress of spirit and bodily sensations – that connect introvertive, extrovertive, and interpretive mysticisms. We draw on ideas found in Daoist canons and scriptures to provide a contextualized discussion of the findings, and highlight some of the ways that the findings contribute to expanding the common core thesis to a broader range of PRSM experiences.

ABSTRACT Three studies tested the hypothesis that exposure to pluralistic (vs. non-pluralistic) attitudes about religion would enhance mood but lower meaning in life. Studies 1 (N = 827) and 2 (N = 852) showed that pluralistic attitudes about Christianity (Study 1) and Islam (Study 2) led to better mood but lower meaning in life than non-pluralistic and control passages. In both studies, condition effects were stronger among those low on conservatism. Study 3 (N = 1043) directly replicated Study 1 and showed that the existential threat of pluralism is mediated by personal uncertainty, particularly for those who are less conservative. Religious pluralism is important to a healthy, functioning society, yet threatens the experience of meaning in life by enhancing personal uncertainty. Interventions to overcome this psychological hurdle are discussed.