Psychology Of Religion Research Articles

The constructs mediating religions' influence on buyers and consumers

PurposeThere is limited conceptual and theoretical knowledge among marketers and practitioners regarding the measurement of religious influences in consumer market‐place behaviours. The purpose of this paper is to review religious factors that appear to influence buyer and consumer behaviour in the light of findings from marketing and religious psychology.Design/methodology/approachThe paper utilises academic databases to search for marketing and religious psychology papers that deal with influences of religion and constructs that have been suggested to mediate them. Findings from religious psychology are utilised as the backbone for understanding religious influence. The paper also compares and groups terminologies and concepts used in marketing studies, suggesting a holistic view of religion and factors that may mediate religious influences on consumers' market‐place behaviours.FindingsFive factors of religious influence have been identified. These are commitment, motivation, affiliation, knowledge about a religion and awareness of the social consequences of following a religion. The characteristics, importance and applications of these factors are discussed.Originality/valueThe paper applies knowledge from the area of religious psychology to offer a holistic view in understanding factors that tend to mediate religious influences on consumer behaviours.

Jung as psychologist of religion and Jung as philosopher of religion

Is it possible to be both a psychologist and a philosopher? Is it possible for a psychologist, or more generally a social scientist, to use social scientific findings to make philosophical claims? Specifically, is it possible for a social scientist to use social scientific findings to determine the existence of God? Did Jung profess to be only a psychologist or also a philosopher? If he professed to be both, did he enlist his psychological findings to make philosophical claims? Specifically, did he enlist his psychological findings to determine the existence of God?

Response to Robert Segal's ‘Jung as psychologist of religion and Jung as philosopher of religion’

Journal of Analytical PsychologyVolume 55, Issue 3 p. 389-393 Response to Robert Segal's ‘Jung as psychologist of religion and Jung as philosopher of religion’ George B. Hogenson, George B. Hogenson Chicago, USASearch for more papers by this author George B. Hogenson, George B. Hogenson Chicago, USASearch for more papers by this author First published: 07 June 2010 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-5922.2010.01850.xRead the full textAboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditWechat Volume55, Issue3June 2010Pages 389-393 RelatedInformation

Wahn, Religion, Fundamentalismus

Religious delusion consistently pops in cases of inexplicable occurrences amongst people or the individual as keyword up. Delusion, religion and fundamentalism are being diligently mixed up. Atheism declares religion to be a delusion in general. Pastoral care tends to declare delusion to be virtually religious practice. The (western) public peers fearfully upon the experience, that religion could not only be helpful in certain situations, and is frightened by obliterative violence. Religious psychology and pastoral care concentrate on the beneficial and supporting aspects of religion, thus perceiving the other side as being only a theoretical, interpretative element. The essay converges on the interrelations and differences between religious delusion as affliction and delusional fundamentalism, illustrating both forms of reality construction case related.

Universality and Particularity: Reflections on Glicksman's Critique of the Study of Religion and Spirituality Among Older Persons

This article responds to Glicksman's critique that researchers studying older adults' religiousness and spirituality employ measuring instruments that fail to recognize the theological, cultural, and historical factors affecting scale development. Reflections on the ways psychologists of religion have conceptualized and measured intrinsic and extrinsic religiosity offers additional insight into the unacknowledged tacit assumptions underlying many research tools used to study religion, spirituality, and aging. Especially problematic are efforts to measure so-called universal aspects of religiousness and spirituality without reference to the particularities of religious traditions and spiritual practices.

Late Stylin’ in an Ill-Fitting Suit: Donald Capps’ Artistic Approach to the Hopeful Self and its Implications for Unacknowledged African American Young Men

Donald Capps stands among a number of pastoral theologians and psychologists of religion who in recent decades have examined the nature of Christian hope. His sustained research on this topic over the entire decade of the 1990s has made his a primary pastoral theological voice on the subject. This article examines how Capps, without declaring a formal method, uses an “artistic approach” to construct a Christian perspective of the hopeful self. Consideration is given to how this understanding of the hopeful self relates to African American young men who feel muted and invisible.

Can Religion and Psychology Work Together in Clinic? A Philosophical Evaluation

Klinik uygulamalarla din arasinda dusmansi bir tutumun oldugu genel bir telakkidir. Bu telakkinin ardindaki fikir; dinin, insanlik durumunu bilimsel olarak kanitlanamayan sebeplere isnat etmesi olarak tezahur etmektedir. Ancak, bu telakki her halukârda hayata iliskin positivist bir yaklasim yansitmaktadir. Din ve klinik uygulama birbiriyle uyumsuz degildir. Aslinda, bir basiret ve ongoru kaynagi olarak din klinik uygulamalarda uc sebeple istihdam edilebilmektedir: (1) Bilim ve felsefeye nisbetle din, en kapsamli bir disiplindir. Bilim tikellerle (ozgul alanlarla) ilgilenir. Ote yandan felsefe her ne kadar evrensellerle ilgilense de bireyin dogum oncesi ve olum sonrasiyla ilgilenmez. (2) Din, hayatin anlamina iliskin olarak cevap saglayan en temel-tutarli fenomendir. (3) Temel dini metinler psikolojik mukavemet baglaminda en esasli muhasebeler saglayan zengin kaynaklardir. Dolayisiyla, dinin klinik uygulamalarda goz ardi edilemez hayati bir rolu soz konusudur: hem tedavi hem de hifzissihha baglaminda bir basiret kaynagi olarak din, klinik uygulamalarda istihdam edilebilir ve edilmelidir

The Dynamics of Becoming a Psychologist of Religion: The Case of Heije Faber

This paper offers a psychobiographical study of the connection between the life and work of Heije Faber (1907-2001), the internationally best known Dutch psychologist of religion. Initially, Faber studied theology, qualifying in philosophy of religion; in later years, he studied psychology (second doctorate: 1956). As a politically active pastor, he had to hide from the Nazi-occupation of The Netherlands during World War II. In 1970 he became the first professor of the psychology of religion at a Dutch theological faculty. Faber was interested in a psychoanalytic approach to religion, by the end of his life particularly in selfpsychology as developed by Heinz Kohut. There is a curious contradiction in his work: although Faber employs several types of psychology in his autobiography to interpret aspects of his own development, he neglects the Kohutian psychology that he had himself helped to introduce to The Netherlands. This article tries to solve the paradox and suggests some psychological hypotheses as to the relationship of Faber psychodynamics and his contribution to psychology.

God’s Melancholia

Donald Capps’s (Capps 1997, 2001, 2002a, b) male melancholia theory has been of interest to me during the past few years (Carlin 2003, 2006, 2007), and Capps (2004, 2007a, b) himself has been publishing more on the topic. In his psychobiographical book on Jesus, Capps (2000) notes that psychologists of religion have been reluctant to psychoanalyze Jesus, and here I note that even fewer have been willing to diagnose God, one recent exception being J. Harold Ellens (2007). In this article, I explore the melancholia issue further, this time applying the theory to God by means of theological concepts that deal with the Trinity and the passion of God. And while this article is playful (Pruyser 1974; cf. Dykstra 2001), the upshot is more serious: If men are incurably religious and melancholic, as Capps argues, and if men, by and large, are the creators of religion, wouldn’t one expect to find traces of this melancholy in religion, particularly in its sacred texts and doctrines? By identifying these tendencies in religion, especially in God, the pastoral psychologist, I believe, is helping contemporary Christian men—especially fathers and sons—recognize their own melancholy selves and, perhaps, helping them get along a little better.

Whither the Psychology of Religion: A Spirituality-Focused Discussion of Paloutzian and Park’s (2005)

Presuming Rayburn's (2006: Child & Family Behavior Therapy, 28, 86-92) review of (Paloutzian and Park's, (2005, New York: The Guilford Press) [corrected] Handbook of the Psychology of Religion and Spirituality [corrected] and sketching an alternative paradigm, this review focuses on the Handbook's virtual conflation of religion and spirituality; relates this conflation to the hegemony of Protestant theology in North American psychology of religion; highlights the Handbook's lack of attention to [corrected] spirituality per se, which--if [corrected] not inseparably linked with theism, but, rather, [corrected] related to the self-transcending, meaning-making dimension of the human mind--could [corrected] provide an explanatory breakthrough in the field of the psychology of religion and of the social sciences overall; and sees Handbook's advocacy for a "multilevel interdisciplinary paradigm" as a regrettable acceptance of the failed, long-term strategy of the field of psychology in general.

The Mission to North Korea

The article that follows this one is unusual for the depth of insight and direct experience with which its author writes on the religious psychology of North Korea. Ben Torrey has put readers of the International Bulletin of Missionary Research in his debt both by editing George Kap-Hun Kim's translation of Hyun-Sik Kim's article and by supplying an introduction that situates Kim's life and work within the wider context of mission to North Korea. Torrey himself grew up in South Korea, where he joined with his parents in pioneering Jesus Abbey, a community of prayer high in the Taebaek Mountains of Kangwon Do. Following graduation from college in the United States, he directed a community service organization for over two years and then, with his wife, Liz, spent a year in Korea at Jesus Abbey. Upon returning to the United States for the second time, the Torreys settled in Connecticut, where Ben served as a self-supporting pastor with the Evangelical Apostolic Church of North America while working in the fields of computer systems development and knowledge management. Seeing the need for the church and South Korean society to prepare properly for the inevitable opening of North Korea, Torrey, in conjunction with Jesus Abbey, began the Fourth River Project in 2003. He was also given responsibility to direct Jesus Abbey's Three Seas Training Center. The Torreys returned to Korea in October 2005 in order to pursue this work full time.—Editor

Theology and Aboriginal Religion: Continuing “The Wider Ecumenism”

“Wider ecumenism” goes beyond conventional ecumenical and interreligious dialogue to conversation with indigenous religions. While many indigenous theologians today readily employ “Western” thought forms, an additional methodology is needed to articulate aboriginal experience. Cast in the form of a narrative of four decades of field work, this article describes such a methodology, incorporating the symbolic theology of 18th-century missionary anthropologist Joseph Lafitau, Bernard Lonergan's ideas on “data of consciousness” and “mutual self-mediation,” Antoine Vergote's religious psychology, and the complexities of “ethnographic memory” as described by Clifford Geertz.

Psychology in China and the Chinese Psychological Society

Psychology in China and the Chinese Psychological Society

Schicksalsanalyseand Religion Studies

The contemporary study of religion has benefited greatly from dialogues with depth psychology and psychiatry. In this study I consider the work of the Hungarian-born Swiss psychiatrist Leopold Szondi (1893–1986) as a major resource for the study of religion. While not well known in the English-speaking world, Szondi was an eminent medical scholar who produced, under conditions of political persecution, war, and exile, a large, magisterial body of literature known as the Analysis of Destiny (Schicksalsanalyse), which remains largely untranslated. The aim of this essay is (1) to present Szondi’s theory of religion in its biographical and historical context and (2) to discuss specific concepts in his theory, namely, those of the familial unconscious, Cain-Moses polarity, and pontifical ego. These three themes are chosen because they reflect Szondi’s pioneering pedigree studies, his clarification of the psychiatric aspects of epilepsy, and his transpersonal synthesis of depth psychology. The familial unconscious is presented in terms of his concept of genotropism and applied to the symbolic forms of tribal religion. The Cain-Moses polarity is addressed as a paroxysmal-epileptoid ground of evil and justice within the psychology of monotheism. The pontifical ego, representing religious experience at the highest level of relatedness and symbolized by the bridge, is evaluated on the bases of the Indo-Persian and Latin traditions of the sacred bridge. As a systematic psychiatry bearing a religious depth psychology, Szondi’s work has both historical significance and relevance to the contemporary study of religion. He has developed a wide-ranging approach to understanding the psychological, metaphysical, and theological aspects of religious experience.

The Individual in Relation to the Sangha in American Buddhism: An Examination of ''Privatized Religion''

In his celebrated book Bowling Alone (2000), Robert Putnam noted the increased level in the phenomenon of ‘‘privatized religion’’ within the previous thirty-five years. Many of the Baby Boomer generation left churches in the late 1960s and the 1970s. Some sought out new religious movements and religious therapies, but most simply ‘‘dropped out’’ of organized religion altogether. He cites Wade Clark Roof and William McKinney, specialists in American religion, who describe the outcome of this trend in American religious behavior: ‘‘[The consequence was a] tendency toward highly individualized religious psychology without the benefits of strong supportive attachments to believing communities. A major impetus in this direction in the post-1960s was the thrust toward greater personal fulfillment and quest for the ideal self. . . . In this climate of expressive individualism, religion tends to become ‘‘privatized,’’ or anchored in the personal realms.’’1 Putnam observes that although privatized religion may be ‘‘morally compelling and psychologically fulfilling,’’ it involves less social capital than environments in which individuals are connected to other individuals in shared faith commitment. Interestingly, American Buddhism may be one of the beneficiaries of this trend, for the recent growth of Buddhism in the United States is partly attributable to the climate of ‘‘privatized’’ religion. Nowhere is this symbolized more than by the so-called Nightstand Buddhists. 2 The Nightstand Buddhists derive their name from their practice of placing a Buddhist meditation book on the nightstand after reading it before they go to sleep. They get up the next morning and practice to the best of their ability the meditation they had read about the night before. Further, they may frequently attend lectures at the local university and visit a Buddhist center’s webpage or participate in an online Buddhist discussion group. And if we were to visit them, we might find their homes decorated with Buddhist artifacts. But these Nightstand Buddhists do not show up in any statistics on the

Measuring Faith Development

James Fowler's theory of faith development has had a significant influence on religious education, pastoral care, and developmental psychology. Since he introduced the notion of faith “stages,” there have been several attempts to measure these, beginning with Fowler's own work. This article reviews and evaluates the adequacy of the various instruments used to measure Fowler's theory of faith development.

The Quest for Objectivity in Psychology of Religion: Do we Need the Ideological Surround Model and Christian Translations of Scales?

In my comment on the article Christian Tolerance of Ambiguity I argue that we do not need an Ideological Surround Model for achieving a kind of “balanced objectivity” in the psychology of religion. In addition, I argue that the distinction between two ideological surrounds is much too simple with regard to the debates and controversies among psychologists of religion concerning the “good” theoretical concepts and empirical methods and the “evil” ones. I also formulate some problems I have with the suggested Christian translation of the Budner Scale.

PERSPECTIVE: "The Symposia for European Psychologists of Religion, 1979-2003--A Retrospective"

PERSPECTIVE: "The Symposia for European Psychologists of Religion, 1979-2003--A Retrospective"

PERSPECTIVE: "In Defense of the Object: On Trends and Directions in Psychology of Religion"

PERSPECTIVE: "In Defense of the Object: On Trends and Directions in Psychology of Religion"

Awe-Full Encounters: A Pentecostal Conversation with C.S. Lewis Concerning Spiritual Experience

AbstractPerhaps best known by us as an exceptionally astute and incisive apologist, C.S. Lewis also has much to say to serious Pentecostals about religious experience—a foundational value in Pentecostalism. Aware of and interacting with Freudian and Jungian religious psychology, Lewis agreed with Rudolf Otto that religious experience is essentially mysterious encounter with the Numinous, arguing that numinous encounter constitutes the seed of all real religious experience. At its core authentic religious experience is divine encounter characterized by ineffable awe in God’s presence. Lewis’ articulation of experience informs and enhances Pentecostal theology and spirituality appreciably in key areas of ontology, epistemology, and anthropology. Personal testimony affirms the reality and centrality for Pentecostals of encountering God’s presence in Spirit baptism, speaking in tongues, and other spiritual gifts or experiences, as well as in private prayer and public worship.