Belief In Karma Research Articles

Barriers and Enablers Provided by Hindu Beliefs and Practices for People with Disabilities in India

Background: Faith beliefs, and associated cultural beliefs, play an important role in affecting responses to disability. There is no systematic review of how Hindu beliefs affect approaches to people with disabilities. The majority of the world’s Hindus live in India, as do a large number of people with disabilities. Therefore, this article seeks to explore the positive and negative ways that Hindu beliefs affect people with disabilities in India. Methods: We undertook a scoping review of the available literature aiming to explore the barriers and enablers for people with disabilities provided by Hindu beliefs and practices. The databases PubMed, Scopus, and PsycInfo were systematically searched and several additional articles from other sources were included from searching the grey literature. Results: Historically, the literature indicates that Indian, Hindu, karmic beliefs have advanced the view that people with disabilities are deserving of their condition. This literature suggests that this view continues into the present and can lead to stigmatisation of both people with disabilities and their families. In turn, this karmic understanding of disability can discourage people with disabilities from accessing medical treatment. Additionally, certain Hindu tribal remedies for disability may cause bodily harm and prevent the person with disability from receiving allopathic treatment. It was also documented that the attitude of Indian doctors toward people with disabilities are negatively affected by Hindu beliefs. One research study suggested that karmic beliefs can benefit families of people with disabilities by providing them with a context for suffering. Conclusion: The study shows that Hindu religious belief effects, mostly negatively, the response to disability. This is important to consider when undertaking disability and inclusive development activities in India.

Between Karma and Buddha: Prosocial Behavior among Mongolians in an Anonymous Economic Game

ABSTRACTNorenzayan and colleagues argue that culturally evolved beliefs in monitoring and punishing supernatural agents contributed to the expansion of large-scale cooperation. Previous studies showed that Western participants primed with the God concept in anonymous dictator games tended to be more prosocial. However, there is a lack of studies that would investigate karmic beliefs and its effect on pro-sociality, thus expanding the scope of supernatural punishment hypothesis. The current study is one of the first attempts to address the question of belief in karma and its relation to prosocial behavior in a non-Western Buddhist culture. Using karma as a prime and a dictator game to measure generosity, the present study was carried out with Mongolians. Overall, Mongolians were rather generous. While we did not find the effect of the karma prime, there remains a possibility that this effect was masked by overall generosity. However, first, it is argued that the Mongolian Buddhist conceptions of karma (üiliin ür) and merit (buyan), intertwined with nomadic generosity norms, might have facilitated prosocial behavior among Mongolians. Second, results from regression analyses highlighted some variation between self-ascribed Buddhist and non-religious Mongolians, showing that Buddhist participants tended to give slightly more than non-religious participants. Third, the current results also indicate that belief in Buddha with God-like attributes, though espoused by a non-negligible number of Buddhist Mongolians, is not unanimous. And those who expressed this belief were no more generous than those who did not.

The karma of consumption: role of materialism in the pursuit of life satisfaction

PurposeThis paper aims to examine how social comparison (SC) and belief in karma (KA) encourage materialism (MAT) and promote consumers’ life satisfaction (LS).Design/methodology/approachTwo studies were conducted with Indian middle class consumers to test the basic premises of the current research. The first one used a survey (N = 247), while the second one used an experimental design (N = 206).FindingsThe survey results showed that SC and belief in KA promoted MAT amongst Indian consumers and further enhanced their LS. Findings from the experiment revealed a novel two-way interaction, in that the KA–MAT relationship was moderated by the underlying motivation for MAT.Research limitations/implicationsFuture research may validate and extend our findings using different samples to increase external validity.Practical implicationsBy explaining the interactive effects of MAT, its underlying motivation and belief in KA, managers will gain a better understanding of why consumers in an emerging market like India purchase conspicuous products.Originality/valueThis is the first paper to study how the KA–MAT relationship influences LS amongst consumers in the world’s fastest-rising economy. Furthermore, no prior research has reported a boundary condition for the KA–MAT relationship studied here. The findings contribute to an extremely limited body of literature on KA and consumption.

Believing in Karma: The Effect of Mortality Salience on Excessive Consumption.

This research proposes that mortality salience leads individuals to engage in differentiation of excessive consumption based on their appraisal of the karmic system. Study 1 demonstrated that mortality salience interacts with belief in karma to jointly determine excessive consumption, such that consumers faced with mortality salience tend to increase overconsumption likelihood when they have a weak (vs. strong) belief in karma. Study 2 revealed the underlying mechanism – temporal perspective – that drives our main effect. Replicating the findings of the two previous studies, study 3 further delineated benefit appeal as a theoretically derived boundary condition for the proposed interaction effect on excessiveness. Theoretical and, practical implications, as well as avenues for future research are discussed.

The Content and Correlates of Belief in Karma Across Cultures.

Karmic beliefs, centered on the expectation of ethical causation within and across lifetimes, appear in major world religions as well as spiritual movements around the world, yet they remain an underexplored topic in psychology. In three studies, we assessed the psychological predictors of Karmic beliefs among participants from culturally and religiously diverse backgrounds, including ethnically and religiously diverse students in Canada, and broad national samples of adults from Canada, India, and the United States (total N = 8,996). Belief in Karma is associated with, but not reducible to, theoretically related constructs including belief in a just world, belief in a moralizing God, religious participation, and cultural context. Belief in Karma also uniquely predicts causal attributions for misfortune. Together, these results show the value of measuring explicit belief in Karma in cross-cultural studies of justice, religion, and social cognition.

What Goes Around, Comes Around: How Beliefs in Karma Influence the Use of Word of Mouth for Self-Enhancement

It is well established that consumers often engage in word of mouth to self-enhance. Self-enhancement motives are reflected in consumers’ tendency to spread negative word of mouth about others and positive word of mouth about oneself when self-views are threatened. The present research argues that this behavior is not universal. The authors contend that belief in karma moderates consumers’ tendency to transmit negative and generate positive word of mouth as a way to self-enhance in response to threat. Five studies offer evidence that, when facing threat, consumers who believe in karma talk less negatively about others, and less positively about themselves, compared to consumers who do not believe in karma. The authors argue that this occurs because threat motivates people who believe in karma to seek karmic rewards, in order to restore their balance with the world. Overall, this research contributes to the literature on word of mouth, by shedding light on a deeply rooted extraordinary belief that shapes word-of-mouth valence.

Psychodermatology: An Indian perspective

Psychodermatology, a relatively neglected branch of dermatology in India, refers to a holistic approach to skin diseases involving not only the mind and skin, but also the cutaneous effects of psychologic stress. Among many Indian people, culture, religion, the belief in karma, and the tendency to prefer indigenous medical systems can all have a major impact on lifestyle, as well as the approach to managing various diseases, including dermatologic conditions. The origin of psychodermatology in India can be traced to Buddha’s period. Indigenous medical systems, such as Ayurveda, Yoga, and Unani, advocate control of skin disease through meditation, exercises, and related practices. Scientific practice of psychodermatology is still lacking in India, although there is an increasing understanding of the mind-skin connection among both health care providers and patients who have access to information over the Internet. The first dedicated psychodermatology liaison clinic was established in 2010 in Manipal, India. The common problems encountered have been anxiety, dysthymia, and depression, especially in patients with psoriasis, vitiligo, and urticaria.

Is Hinduism ambivalent about suicide?

Hinduism is one of the oldest religions in the world and has over 1.1 billion adherents comprising about 16% of the global population living mainly in India and Nepal. The stand of Hinduism on suicide has been ambiguous through the ages, on one hand, condemning general suicides, while condoning religious suicides on the other. This ambiguity is reflected in contemporary India and among the Indian diaspora. To examine the stand of Hinduism as a religion in the context of suicide. A selected review of literature covering the major Hindu religious texts, cultural practices and suicide. People who follow Hinduism have a suicide rate of about 21 per 100,000 population compared to the global average of 11.4. Hindu countries have higher rates of suicide compared to Islamic and Christian countries, but these rates are lower when compared to Atheist and Buddhist countries. This is reflected in the Indian diaspora as well with reports from Fiji, the Caribbean, Malaysia and the United Kingdom, indicating that suicide was disproportionately high among those of Indian origin. However, a strong faith in Hinduism acts as protective factor. The Hindu belief in karma fosters a sense of acceptance of the vicissitudes of life with equanimity, and the belief in the cycle of births and deaths renders suicide meaningless, as one's soul continues after death. Their religious beliefs makes the Hindus tolerate and accept hardships and calamities stoically. In certain situations, the Hindu religion acts as a protective factor, whereas at other times, it may increase the risk of suicide. It is important to understand these different nuances in the Hindu religion in formulating a culturally appropriate suicide prevention strategy.

Culture matters: indigenizing patient safety in Bhutan.

Studies show that if quality of healthcare in a country is to be achieved, due consideration must be given to the importance of the core cultural values as a critical factor in improving patient safety outcomes. The influence of Bhutan's traditional (core) cultural values on the attitudes and behaviours of healthcare professionals regarding patient care are not known. This study aimed to explore the possible influence of Bhutan's traditional cultural values on staff attitudes towards patient safety and quality care. Undertaken as a qualitative exploratory descriptive inquiry, a purposeful sample of 94 healthcare professionals and managers were recruited from three levels of hospitals, a training institute and the Ministry of Health. Interviews were transcribed verbatim and analysed using thematic analysis strategies. The findings of the study suggest that Bhutanese traditional cultural values have both productive and counterproductive influences on staff attitudes towards healthcare delivery and the processes that need to be in place to ensure patient safety. Productive influences encompassed: karmic incentives to avoid preventable harm and promote safe patient care; and the prospective adoption of the 'four harmonious friends' as a culturally meaningful frame for improving understanding of the role and importance of teamwork in enhancing patient safety. Counterproductive influences included: the adoption of hierarchical and authoritative styles of management; unilateral decision-making; the legitimization of karmic beliefs; differential treatment of patients; and preferences for traditional healing practices and rituals. Although problematic in some areas, Bhutan's traditional cultural values could be used positively to inform and frame an effective model for improving patient safety in Bhutan's hospitals. Such a model must entail the institution of an 'indigenized' patient safety program, with patient safety research and reporting systems framed around local patient safety concerns and solutions, including religious and cultural concepts, values and perspectives.

What are the causes and consequences of belief in karma?

ABSTRACTThe scientific study of religion has thus far overlooked the study of beliefs and practices that are centered on the notion of karma: ethical causation across one or different lifetimes. Here, we outline a set of pertinent questions about karmic beliefs and practices ripe for research, namely (1) their cultural distribution around the world, (2) their structure and content, and (3) their psychological and cultural antecedents and consequences.

An insight into death wish among patients with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis in India using "Wish-to-Die Questionnaire".

In amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), death wish is expressed in a varying proportion of patients in different countries. In this first study from India, influence of belief system of religion/spirituality and attitude towards death, widely prevalent in the country, in decision making, was evaluated. Twenty ALS patients were assessed using 'Wish-to-Die Questionnaire' (WDQ) developed to reflect seven domains, namely religion/spirituality, belief in karma, meaning of life, hope, family support, financial support and death wish. Functional impairment, depression, hopelessness and suicidal ideation were assessed by ALS Functional Rating Scale, Beck's Depression Inventory, Beck Hopelessness Scale and The Scale of Suicidal Ideation, respectively. On WDQ, all the 20 patients had belief in religion/spirituality, had hope and family support. Nineteen patients (95%) believed in karma, 16 (80%) still found life meaningful and 15 (75%) had financial support. Six patients (30%) had mild to moderate depression; hopelessness was present in 6 (30%) and suicidal ideation was present in one (5%). The 5 (25%) patients who expressed death wish did not significantly differ from others in 6 domains (religion/spirituality, belief in karma, meaning of life, hope, family support, financial support) of WDQ. The main reason in 3 patients who expressed death wish was lack of financial support. The fourth patient could not find meaning of life after the onset of illness, and the fifth wished to end his life since he had satisfactorily fulfilled all his responsibilities. Smaller proportion of patients of ALS expressed death wish in India compared to the Western countries. This may be attributed to belief in religion/spirituality and karma, having meaning of life and family support. As this is the first report from India, useful information may be obtained if similar studies are done on a larger sample.

You get what you give: children's karmic bargaining

Do children believe in karma - the notion that life events occur to punish or reward our moral behavior? In three experiments, we investigate 4-6-year-old children's willingness to endorse and engage in the practice of performing good acts in order to secure an unrelated future desired outcome, so-called 'karmic bargaining'. Most children agreed that performing a morally good social behavior, but not a morally negative or morally neutral non-social behavior, would increase the chances that future desired outcomes would occur, in both first-party and third-party contexts. About half of children also engaged in karmic bargaining behavior themselves. We conclude that a belief in karma may therefore reflect a broad, early-emerging teleological bias to interpret life events in terms of agency, purpose, and design.

In Pursuit of Good Karma: When Charitable Appeals to Do Right Go Wrong

This research examines the implications of consumers’ belief in karma—the belief that the universe bestows rewards for doing right and exacts punishments for doing wrong—in the context of prosocial behavior. Although intuitively, believing in karma should result in greater intentions to do right by supporting a charity, karmic beliefs are found to facilitate prosocial behavior only in contexts not associated with self-gains. A series of experiments shows that those with strong (vs. weak) beliefs in karma actually respond less favorably to charitable appeals that rely on common marketing tools meant to enhance consumer responses but that also cue self-gains by offering incentives or by highlighting self-benefits. However, these effects are only obtained for donations of time, which represent a means to enhance social connections, but not for donations of money. Consistent with the proposition that prosocial behaviors motivated by self-gains do not engender karmic rewards, lower intentions to do right among those with strong karmic beliefs are driven by a shift from other-focused to self-focused attention following appeals that cue self-gains, as compared to appeals that do not. Results imply that marketers need to take into account consumers’ karmic beliefs when seeking to incentivize prosocial behavior.

The prosocial benefits of seeing purpose in life events: A case of cultural selection in action?

Norenzayan et al. propose that religious beliefs with incidental prosocial effects propagated via a long-term process of cultural evolution. Applying their model, I explore a possible candidate target of cultural selection: the teleological view-often culturally elaborated as a belief in karma or fate-that life events occur to punish or reward individuals' moral behavior.

Karma and Rebirth in the Stream of Thought and Life

This essay explores the concepts of karma and rebirth in the light of some key themes from the later work of Wittgenstein. After clarifying what it means to “bring words back from their metaphysical to their everyday use” it is considered how certain Wittgenstein-influenced philosophers, notably İlham Dilman and D. Z. Phillips, have sought to recover the meaning of “soul” from metaphysical misappropriations by invoking Wittgenstein’s notion of a “picture” The sort of conceptual recovery involved in this task resembles, in some respects, the “demythologizing” and “psychologizing” approaches of certain interpreters of the doctrine of karma and rebirth, especially within the context of Buddhist studies. Illustrative examples of these approaches are compared and contrasted and discussed in relation to instances of individuals articulating their belief in karma and rebirth. On the basis of this discussion, it is concluded that the interpretive approaches in question fail to account for the sense of individual responsibility for one’s own present circumstances that is central to how talk of karma and rebirth frequently operates “in the stream of thought and life.”

Ideological Support for the Indian Caste System: Social Dominance Orientation, Right-Wing Authoritarianism and Karma

This paper extends the social dominance perspective to the Indian context by examining the role of belief in Karma (sanchita) in the justification of the Indian caste system. Using social dominance theory (Sidanius & Pratto, 1999) and the dual process model (Duckitt, 2001) as guiding theoretical frameworks, we tested four related hypotheses within a sample of 385 Indian university students. In particular we expected that social dominance orientation (SDO) and right-wing authoritarianism (RWA) would both make relatively strong and independent contributions to participants’ endorsement of Karma (H1), as well as their support for antiegalitarian social policies and conventions (H2). We also predicted that endorsement of Karma, itself, would be strongly related to support for these policies, net of the influence of SDO, RWA, as well as generalized prejudice (H3). Finally, and consistent with the notion that Karma functions as a legitimizing ideology, we hypothesized that it would at least partially mediate, net of generalized prejudice, the relationships between SDO and RWA, on the one hand, and antiegalitarian and conventional social policies, on the other (H4). Results of latent variable structural equation modeling provided support for all four hypotheses. The theoretical implications of these findings are discussed.

Karma, Morality, and Evil

AbstractThe doctrine of karma has been praised as a rational and morally edifying explanatory response to the existence of evil and apparent injustice in the world. Critics have attacked it as a morally misguided dogma that distorts one's vision of reality. This essay, after outlining the traditional doctrine, examines three criticisms that have been central to recent debates: firstly, that the doctrine offers no practical guidance; second, that it faces a dilemma between free will and fatalism; and third, that it involves a morally repugnant form of blaming victims for their own misfortunes. Possible responses are considered, the depth of the disagreement is highlighted, and a morally significant difference between alternative ways of articulating the belief in karma is analyzed.

Babies Born Dying: Just Bad Karma? A Discussion Paper

The paper examines the notion of being born dying and karma. Karma is a belief upheld by Buddhists and non-Buddhists: That is, karma follows people from their previous lives into their current lives. This raises a difficult question: Does karma mean that a baby's death is its own fault? While great peace can be found from a belief in karma, the notion of a baby's karma returning in some sort of retributive, universal justice can be de-emphasized and is considered "un-Buddhist." Having an understanding of karma is intrinsic to the spiritual care for the dying baby, not only from the perspective of parents and families who have these beliefs, but also for reconciling one's own beliefs as a healthcare practitioner.

Spiritual concerns in Hindu cancer patients undergoing palliative care: A qualitative study

Aims:Spiritual concerns are being identified as important components of palliative care. The aim of this study was to explore the nature of spiritual concerns in cancer patients undergoing palliative care in a hospice in India.Materials and Methods:The methodology used was a qualitative method: Interpretive phenomenological analysis. A semi-structured interview guide was used to collect data, based on Indian and western literature reports. Certain aspects like karma and pooja, relevant to Hindus, were included. Theme saturation was achieved on interviewing 10 participants.Results:The seven most common spiritual concerns reported were benefit of pooja, faith in God, concern about the future, concept of rebirth, acceptance of one's situation, belief in karma, and the question Why me? No participant expressed four of the concerns studied: Loneliness, need of seeking forgiveness from others, not being remembered later, and religious struggle.Conclusions:This study confirms that there are spiritual concerns reported by patients receiving palliative care. The qualitative descriptions give a good idea about these experiences, and how patients deal with them. The study indicates the need for adequate attention to spiritual aspects during palliative care.

Palliative care and vulnerability of self.

When we are exposed to patients and significant others' existential issues in palliative care, we not only come close to their vulnerable selves, but also most often come in contact with our own selves. Or, as Avery Weisman states, 'Healing is bilateral' (Weisman (1993: 16). This refers to the interpersonal processes most often involved when someone suffering is comforted or consoled. When we mediate comfort and consolation, the sufferer may not be the only one affected. The comforter may also be comforted and even transformed through the shift of perspective in the consoling event (Norberg et al., 2001). However, facing vulnerability of self and others takes courage, and thus, may be risky. In palliative care there are numbers of issues to be dealt with which can be hazardous or uncertain for the palliative care provider and as a consequence - regardless of its significance for the patient - may be hidden, avoided or neglected in practice. Such issues are highlighted in this section of this special issue on palliative and supportive care: sexuality, intimacy, guilt, shame, grief and spirituality. Coming closer to such phenomena may likely enhance practical wisdom. In this way the contributors present insights of significance for palliative care team members to prudently and wisely act with sensitivity in the palliative care of the very ill and dying and the significant others involved (Ohlen, 2002).A common thread in the papers of this section is the presence of existential issues. The first article by Amanda Hordern and Annette Street explores how sexuality and intimacy is communicated in palliative care. Through a reflexive inquiry of Australian patients with cancer and their health professionals these authors reveal how intimacy and sexuality is avoided in palliative care encounters and transformed through the use of neutralized terms by professionals. Talking with patients about their vulnerability due to lack of intimacy following advanced cancer might be very challenging. However, the main results of the study present an image of professionals who unintentionally act powerfully while dialoguing with patients. A minor part of the result presents negotiated communication with potential of providing an empowering dialogue.Two papers explore spirituality: Kittikorn Nilmanat and Annette Street from a Buddhist stance, and Maria Arman from a Christian view point. The first of these report an ethographic case study of Thai family members to patients with AIDS. In the Buddhist context, the AIDS sickness became linked to a belief in karma, and components of the spiritual journey asociated are presented. The second study reports an interpretive inquiry based on reflexive dialogues with nurses working in anthroposophic palliative care in Sweden about nuances of 'bearing witness' as an act of caring. …