Showing papers in "Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion in 1998"

Patterns of positive and negative religious coping with major life stressors.

Abstract: This study attempted to identify positive and negative patterns of religious coping methods, develop a brief measure of these religious coping patterns, and examine their implications for health and adjustment. Through exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses, positive and negative religious coping patterns were identified in samples of people coping with the Oklahoma City bombing, college students coping with major life stressors, and elderly hospitalized patients coping with serious medical illnesses. A 14-item measure of positive and negative patterns of religious coping methods (Brief RCOPE) was constructed. The positive pattern consisted of religious forgiveness, seeking spiritual support, collaborative religious coping, spiritual connection, religious purification, and benevolent religious reappraisal. The negative pattern was defined by spiritual discontent, punishing God reappraisals, interpersonal religious discontent, demonic reap praisal, and reappraisal of God's powers. As predicted, people made more use of the positive than the negative religious coping methods. Furthermore, the two patterns had different implications for health and adjustment. The Brief RCOPE offers an efficient, theoretically meaningful way to integrate religious dimensions into models and studies of stress, coping, and health.

Critical terms for religious studies

Abstract: A century that began with modernism sweeping across Europe is ending with a resurgence of religious beliefs and practices throughout the world. Wherever one looks today, from headlines about political turmoil in the Middle East to pop music and videos, once cannot escape the pivotal role of religion in shaping selves, societies, and cultures. This book attempts to provide a revitalized, self-aware vocabulary with which this religious diversity can be accurately described and responsibly discussed. Scholars working in a variety of traditions demonstrate through their contributions that even our most basic terms for understanding religion are not neutral but carry specific historical and conceptual freight. Each of the essays in this text provides a concise history of a critical term, explores the issues raised by the term, and puts the term to use in an analysis of a religious work, practice, or event. The topics move across: Judaism; Christianity; Hinduism; Buddhism; Islam; and Native American and Mayan religions. Contributors explore terms ranging from experience, territory, and image, to God, sacrifice, and transgression.

Who Gives to the Poor? The Influence of Religious Tradition and Political Location on the Personal Generosity of Americans Toward the Poor

Abstract: Americans vary widely in their ideas about causes of and solutions to poverty, and differ as well in what compassion to the poor should look like. Few researchers have examined the complex issue of compassion. Most who have suggest that conservative Protestantism has lagged behind Catholicism and more liberal Protestantism in generosity or commitment to the poor. This article examines the giving habits of Americans to organizations which help the poor and needy, using religious and political measures to test the conventional view that devout Catholics and liberal Protestants are the friends of the poor, and that politically conservative Christians are indifferent or hostile toward them. The results suggest that religion and religiosity do increase giving to the poor, but that there is no support for the conventional wisdom about conservative Protestants. Indeed, the evidence suggests theological and political conservatives are currently more generous in this particular form of charitable giving.

Religiousness and perceived childhood attachment: On the question of compensation or correspondence.

Abstract: Religiousness and Perceived Childhood Attachment : On the Question of Compensation or Correspondence

Church-based emotional support, negative interaction, and psychological well-Being: Findings from a national sample of Presbyterians

Abstract: The purpose of this study is examine the relationships between church-based emotional support, negative interaction, and psychological well-being among clergy, elders, and rank-and-file members of the Presbyterian Church USA. Based on identity theory, it is proposed that clergy will receive more emotional support and encounter more negative interaction than others in the church. It is further hypothesized that the impact of emotional support and negative interaction on well-being will be greatest among members of the clergy. Data from a nationwide survey of Presbyterians reveal that elders as well as clergy encounter more emotional support and negative interaction than rank-and-file members. The findings further indicate that the effects of emotional support and negative interaction on well-being are greater for clergy and elders than for rank-and-file members. The implications of these findings are discussed, along with several promising directions for future research.

The bully pulpit : the politics of Protestant clergy

Abstract: When Democrats lost control of Congress in 1994, the Christian Right claimed a major role in their defeat and House Speaker Newt Gingrich credited the "organized Christian vote" with the Republican victory. Ministers from many political persuasions have long been active in American politics, but in the 1980s and 1990s it has seemed impossible to find any political controversy that did not involve the clergy-often on both sides of the issue. "The Bully Pulpit" is the first major study of clergy politics in more than twenty years. Drawing on two decades of survey research involving thousands of ministers nationwide, five social scientists explore the political lives of clergy in eight evangelical and mainline Protestant denominations, including the Assemblies of God, Southern Baptist Convention, United Methodist Church, and Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A. They find that the competing theological perspectives of orthodoxy and modernism are increasingly tied to ideological and partisan divisions in American politics. In addressing the nature and extent of clerical participation, The Bully Pulpit asks the following questions: How do different groups of ministers see their role in politics? What activities do they approve or disapprove? How active are Protestant clergy in politics? What factors account for the level and kinds of participation? Do the patterns of clerical activism discovered in the 1960s and 1970s persist today? The authors discover that theological traditionalists emphasize moral reform and tend to specialize in making pronouncements in religious settings, while modernists stress social justice issues and engage in a wider range of political activities, inside and outside the church. They find that "New Breed" liberals have continued the mainline Protestant activism of the 1960s and '70s, but that Christian Right activists have become just as numerous, drawn from the ranks of previously inactive evangelical clergy. Their book offers a balanced assessment of political activity among both clergy at the end of the century and helps us understand the current relationship between church and state in America.

Cognitive Constraints on Hindu Concepts of the Divine

Abstract: Concepts of gods, like any other concepts, are informed and constrained by cross-cultural regularities of the human mind-brain. Specifically, divine beings that are represented as intentional agents are subject to the cognitive intuitions that govern all intentional agents. These intuitions may include psychological and physical attributes not endorsed by a given theological tradition. Experimental evidence is presented supporting the presence of these cognitive constraints and a resulting divergence between stated theological beliefs and implicit concepts. Hindu residents of northern India completed questionnaires regarding attributes of Brahman, Shiva, Vishnu, or Krishna and also participated in a narrative comprehension task. Results revealed striking differences in how the gods were conceived in the two contexts. Theoretical developments in the scientific study of religion during the 1990s have been distinguished by the growing influence of cognitive science. As Stewart Guthrie remarked in 1996, "New efforts at producing a general theory [of religion] have appeared. Although these range from irrationalist, wishful-thinking theories to rationalist and linguistic ones, they increasingly emphasize cognition' (412). This swell of theoretical work only serves to magnify the paucity of empirical scholarship using cognitive methods and insights to address issues in the study of theistic and other cultural systems. The present project addresses this evidential shortcoming by examining the general question of how cognitive architecture informs and constrains conceptualizations of the Divine. In brief, as with any other concept, concepts of gods must largely conform to the undergirding cognitive intuitive assumptions universally held for the ontological category of gods. Since gods are typically understood as intentional agents, they must satisfy the (often) tacit assumptions of agenthood. 1

Spiritual Conversion: A Study of Religious Change Among College Students

Abstract: This study examined the nature of spiritual conversion in a sample of 130 Christian college students. More specifically, this study offered a definition of spiritual conversion and tested it by comparing the ways in which spiritual conversion differs from both gradual increases in religiousness, and from no religious change. Spiritual converts, non converts who increased in religiousness gradually, and religious adherents who did not experience religious change were selected using a screening questionnaire. A questionnaire battery was used in the assessment of the research questions, and was supplemented with 10 interviews which provided personal examples of the students'religious experiences. There were significant differences between the religious change groups and the group not experiencing religious change in terms of their pre-change experiences, post-change experiences, and amount of pre-post change. However, the study did not strongly differentiate between spiritual converts and nonconverts who had experienced religious change. The theoretical implications of these results were discussed.

Changes in Spirituality and Well-Being Among Victims of Sexual Assault

Abstract: Seventy, predominately inner-city, minority women who had been sexually assaulted in the previous 9 to 24 months filled out a questionnaire that included measures of change in well-being and change in the role of spirituality in their lives since the assault. Sixty percent of the victims indicated an increased role for spirituality. Changes in spirituality correlated .54 with changes in well-being. The victims with increased spirituality appeared to have restored well-being, whereas those without increased spirituality continued to have significantly depressed well-being. Although this study cannot provide convincing evidence for the causal mechanisms for these results, a model of compensating reciprocal causation between spirituality and well-being following traumatic events merits further study because it explains both the relatively high correlation in this study and the low correlations in cross-sectional studies of well-being and spirituality. With this model, a traumatic event causes reduced well- being, which causes increased spirituality, which then helps restore well-being to pre-event levels.

Rethinking media, religion, and culture

Abstract: PART ONE: ANALYSIS OF MEDIA, RELIGION, AND CULTURE Introduction - Stewart M Hoover and Knut Lundby Setting the Agenda At the Intersection of Media, Culture, and Religion - Lynn Schofield Clark and Stewart M Hoover A Bibliographical Essay Religion and Media in the Construction of Cultures - Robert A White Technology and Triadic Theories of Mediation - Clifford G Christians PART TWO: MEDIA, RELIGION, AND CULTURE: CONTEMPORARY SOCIETY The Re-Enchantment of the World - Graham Murdock Religion and the Transformations of Modernity Mass Media as a Site of Resacralization of Contemporary Cultures - Jesus Martin-Barbero Escape from Time - Gregor Goethals Ritual Dimensions of Popular Culture The Dispersed Sacred - Gabriel Bar-Haim Anomie and the Crisis of Ritual The Web of Collective Representations - Knut Lundby PART THREE: MEDIA, RELIGION, AND CULTURE: CHANGING INSTITUTIONS Changes in Religion in Periods of Media Converegnce - Peter G Horsfield Media, Meaning and Method in Religious Studies - Chris Arthur Televangelism - Bobby C Alexander Redressive Ritual within a Larger Social Drama Resistance through Mediated Orality - Keyan G Tomaselli and Arnold Shepperson PART FOUR: MEDIA, RELIGION, AND CULTURE: INDIVIDUAL PRACTICE Psychologized Religion in a Mediated World - Janice A Peck A Utopian on Main Street - Claire Hoertz Badaracco Making Sense of Religion in Television - Alf Linderman Media and the Construction of the Religious Public Sphere - Stewart M Hoover Summary Remarks - Knut Lundby and Stewart M Hoover Mediated Religion

Appropriating gender : women's activism and politicized religion in south asia

Abstract: Appropriating Gender explores the paradoxical relationship of women to religious politics in India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and Bangladesh. Contrary to the hopes of feminists, many women have responded to religious nationalist appeals; contrary to the hopes of religious nationalists, they have also asserted their gender, class, caste, and religious identities; contrary to the hopes of nation states, they have often challenged state policies and practices. Through a comparative South Asia perspective, Appropriating Gender explores the varied meanings and expressions of gender identity through time, by location, and according to political context. The first work to focus on women's agency and activism within the South Asian context, Appropriating Gender is an outstanding contribution to the field of gender studies.

Local-level global religion : The case of U.S.-Dominican migration : Religion in global perspective

Abstract: Recent work calls attention to religious globalization - the proliferation of transnational religious structures and movements that challenge the nation state. But contemporary migration prompts a different type of religious transnationalism that has not been sufficiently explored. Sustained connections between communities of origin and destination give rise to a set of transnationalized institutional relationships, discourses, and practices that globalize everyday religious life at the local level. This articles aims to contribute to a more systematic understanding of local-level religious globalization by exploring the case of Catholic church ties spanning Boston and the Dominican Republic. It also stresses the importance of taking into account sustained homeland attachments in understanding everyday immigrant religious life. Strong ties between migrants and nonmigrants created a transnational religious sphere within which people, resources, and social remittances were constantly exchanged. Religious life in Boston and the Dominican Republic were reciprocally transformed as a result. Subsequent emigres continue to infuse fresh Dominicanness into the Boston church, though it is a Dominicanness that is increasingly pan-Latino in tone. In this way, transnational ties reinforce religious pluralism at the same time that they limit its scope.

Panel Analyses of Religious Involvement and Well-Being in African Americans: Contemporaneous vs. Longitudinal Effects

Abstract: This panel study explores the effects of eight measures of religious involvement on three indicators of well-being in a national probability sample of African Americans. Religious measures include religious attendance, church membership, church activity, reading religious books, listening to religious TV/radio, prayer, asking for prayer, and subjective religiosity. Well-being indicators include single-item measures of life satisfaction and happiness, and a 10-item version of the RAND Mental Health Index (MHI), a scale assessing psychological distress. Using data from multiple waves of the National Survey of Black Americans, religious effects on well-being are examined both cross-sectionally at each wave and longitudinally across waves. Findings reveal strong, statistically significant, and consistent religious effects on well-being contemporaneously within each wave, which withstand controlling for the effects of health and seven sociodemographic variables. Longitudinal religious effects on well-being are present bivariately, but disappear after controlling for the effects of baseline well-being, lagged religious involvement, and health. The meaning and interpretation of contemporaneous as opposed to longitudinal religious effects on well-being are discussed.

Religiosity and Femininity: Do Women Really Hold a More Positive Attitude Toward Christianity?

Abstract: Two samples of adolescents, comprising 340 males and 347 females between the ages of 13 and 15 years, and 59 males and 233 females between the ages of 16 and 18 years completed the Bem Sex Role Inventory together with the Francis Scale of Attitude toward Christianity. The vast majority of subjects in both samples were from white Anglo-Saxon backgrounds. Among both age groups, females recorded a more positive attitude toward Christianity than males. At the same time there was a positive correlation between femininity and attitude toward Christianity among both age groups. Multiple regression analysis indicated that among the older group individual differences in gender orientation explained all the variance in attitude toward Christianity between males and females. Among the younger age group, sex still explained additional variance in attitude toward Christianity after taking gender orientation into account.

Denominational influences on socially divisive issues : Polarization or continuity?

Abstract: Research on denominational affiliation and its influence on individual attitudes has increased recently due to widespread interest in whether the United States has become increasingly polarized on a variety of divisive social issues, even while demographic differences among denominations have decreased. However, recent empirical research has, in general, failed to support a polarization argument. Using 22 years of data from the General Social Surveys, we analyze changes over time in the relative variability and distribution of attitudes toward family issues (abortion, gender roles, and sexual behavior) within denominational groups after controlling for the effects of demographic covariates and church attendance. The results show that adjusted coefficients of variation and kurtoses have changed inconsistently. For example, although there has been a decreasing trend in relative variation about women's roles and premarital sex, measures of kurtosis fail to indicate a flattening or peaking of the distributions among denominational groups. However, attitudes toward abortion among conservative and moderate Protestants have become relatively more variable and have moved in the direction of bimodality as gauged by decreasing kurtoses. Similarly, moderate Protestants show increasing relative variability and movement toward bimodality with regard to attitudes toward homosexual relations. These results indicate that, except for a couple of notable examples, attitudes among members of denominational groups have not generally become more polarized over time.

Is religious belief declining in Britain

Abstract: The understanding and interpretation of the presumed "secularization" of Britain and other European nations is clouded by a lack of adequate information regarding the substance and timing of religious change. This paper represents the first systematic effort to collect and analyze existing survey data on religious belief in Britain from the late 1930s to the present. Overall, the results show an increase in general scepticism about the existence of God, the related erosion of dominant, traditional Christian beliefs, and the persistence of nontraditional beliefs. A theoretical perspective is needed that recognizes the often corrosive effects of modern life on the transmission of religious beliefs and the continued popularity of worldviews which presume a transcendent referent, however broadly defined.

Secular Society/Religious Population: Our Tacit Rules for Using the Term 'Secularization'

Abstract: The increasing discussion of secularization is hampered by several ambiguities. What we need is not some new, academic definition, but to recognize that we already adopt several different meanings for the word, depending on whether we are referring to a society, a population, an institution, an activity, or a mentality. Therefore, treating secularization as a general decline of religion is hardly meaningful. This recognition will make it possible to make sense of the fact that Christianity and secularization have sometimes increased together. Finally, the magnitude of the subject is vastly increased when it is viewed from the far side of a historical divide which seems real enough, despite measures of continuing religiosity.

Spiritual correlates of reported sexual abuse among Mormon women

Abstract: Although many studies of physical emotional, and social effects of sexual abuse have been conauctea, spiritual effects have received little attention. Using Mormon women (Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints), who had received counseling. This exploratory study compared 115 women who reported having been sexually abused as children with 70 who reported no such abuse. The questionnaire probed their concept of God, measured by Gorsuch and Spilka's Adjective Scales, sense of spiritual well-being, measuread by Paloutzian and Ellison's Spiritual Well-Being Scale (SWBS), and overall optimism or pessimism, measured by Seligman's Attributional Style Questionnaire (ASQ) In all three areas, the sexually abused group's scores were significantly more negative than were the scores of the nonabused group. This strongly suggests the relevance of spiritual issues in the treatment of survivors of child sexual abuse.

An empirical exploration of psychoanalysis and religion : Spiritual maturity and Object Relations Development

Abstract: The present study builds on the emerging body of empirical literature examining religion from a contemporary psychoanalytic perspective that is particularly informed by object relations theory. Such a perspective leads to the hypothesis of a positive relationship between spiritual maturity defined relationally, and level of object relations development. In other words, it is proposed that the developmental maturity of one's faith and relationship with God is associated with the developmental maturity of one's relationships with others. Spiritual maturity was measured by the Spiritual Assessment Inventory and the Religious Status Inventory. Level of object relations development was measured by the Bell Object Relations Inventory. Results revealed 19 out of 20 significant correlations in the predicted direction between both measures of spiritual maturity and the measure of level of object relations development. Research and clinical implications are discussed.

Assessing the incremental validity of the Religious Problem-Solving Scale in the prediction of clergy burnout.

Abstract: To meet the rigorous standards set by the social sciences, religious research needs to answer two questions: To what degree are constructs developed on spirituality separate and distinct from established psychosocial variables; and To what degree do religious constructs provide insights into human functioning over and above those already provided by existing psychological constructs? Addressing these questions, the current study evaluated the relative contributions of Pargament et al.'s (1988) Religious Problem-Solving scale, the NEO-FFI (a measure of the five-factor model of personality; Costa and McCrae 1992) and two measures of environmental stress in predicting burnout among American Baptist clergy on the Maslach Burnout Inventory (Maslach and Jackson 1986). The results indicated that the Religious Problem-Solving scale was a construct relatively distinct from the other psychological constructs. Hierarchical multiple regression results indicated that while the Religious Problem-Solving scale showed incremental significance in predicting burnout over the other psychosocial measures on two of the Maslach Burnout Inventory scales, its contribution was small. A methodology sensitive to the incremental validity question that uses the five-factor model as a point of reference is recommended for future research.

Islam and the extension of citizenship rights to women in Kuwait : Islam and women

Abstract: This paper examines the compatibility of Islam and the extension of women's rights, one element of democratization, with attention to social complexities within Muslim societies and to religious distinctions within Islam. A random sample of 1,500 Kuwaiti citizens, surveyed in 1994, provided data on individuals' status differences, their religious beliefs and practices and their embeddeness into social networks which are sources of attitude support and formation. OLS regression analysis demonstrated that Islamic orthodoxy was compatible with extending women's rights while Islamic religiosity was not, regardless of the respondents' sects. Respondents occupying positions of social status were more inclusive. However, respondents' ties to the social system around them predicted differently for members of Sunni and Shia sects. Also, intrasect differences probably reflected respondents' connections to different schools of Islamic thought in different geographical locations which hold differing ideas and opinions regarding the place of women.

The value of volunteers as resources for congregations

Abstract: A 1993 study of Assemblies of God, Baptists, Catholics, Lutherans, and Presbyterians inquired about levels of volunteering by parishioners to support church programs. About half of church members volunteer for their churches. Levels of volunteering to support church programs are higher in conservative and evangelical churches, while volunteering for community programs is higher in mainline Protestant churches. The value of volunteers to most churches is roughly two-fifths the value of their monetary contributions. Volunteers' value is highest among Lutherans and Baptists - almost half the current amount of monetary contributions.

Latina religious practice : Analyzing cultural dimensions in measures of religiosity

Abstract: This article explores aspects of Latina culture and how it shapes dimensions of Latina religiosity. This issue is important, because as the authors argue more often Latinas are discussed as victims of their societies and less often as agents of social change. Latinas play central roles in their communities, particularly in the religious cultural sphere where their influence has shaped religious practice and beliefs. We argue that analyzing cultural beliefs and practices are necessary elements of understanding religiosity that have implications for measuring religiosity.

Religion and women : Islamic modernism versus fundamentalism : Islam and women

Abstract: This paper explains two diverse religious discourses on women. In Islamic fundamentalism, women are instructed to cover their bodies from head to toe with the exception of the face and hands, barred from performing certain social functions, given an inferior status to men, and preached to accept polygamy. In Islamic modernism, in contrast, a group of theologians advanced a modernist exegesis of the Quran, arriving at an Islamic feminist conception of gender relations. These scholars championed women's rights to education and involvement in social affairs, questioned the existing restrictions on women, criticized men's attitudes and behavior toward women, and rejected polygamy. This paper explains this contrast by analyzing Islamic modernism in Egypt and India and fundamentalism in Iran in terms of the varying discursive context in which debates over women were waged. It argues that Islamic modernism emerged out of a pluralistic environment, and where the ruling elite refrained from directly interfering in ideological debates and religious disputations. Islamic fundamentalism, on the other hand, emerged out of a mono lithic cultural context where the means of culture production were monopolized by a bureaucratic authoritarian state. This paper then discusses the implications of this study for understanding the relationship between religion and women.

Factor analysis of the 'spiritual well-being scale' and its clinical utility with psychiatric inpatients

Abstract: This study investigated the clinical utility of the Spiritual Well-Being Scale (SWBS) with psychtatric inpatients Specific questions addressed were possible ceiling effects in the SWBS for this population and the SWBS's factor structure Statistical analysis on archival data from 141 female and 61 male (N = 202) patients suggested a lack of significan ceiling effects in the SWBS with this poputation. Factor analysis, using Direct Obliman rotation, evidenced three factor solution for this sample. Psychometric issues and clinica, utility of the SWBS with this population are discussed.

Moral divisions within countries between orthodoxy and progressivism : India and the United States : Religion in global perspective

Abstract: Recently, scholars have argued that divisions have emerged within many countries between tendencies toward orthodoxy or fundamentalism on the one hand, and progressivism or modernism on the other hand. In the present study, interviews assessing moral evaluation and reasoning were carried out with individuals in India and the United States who might be expected to tend toward orthodoxy and progressivism (N = 80, ages 35-55). In both countries, progressivists reasoned more in terms of Shweder's (1990) Ethic of Autonomy than orthodox participants, whereas orthodox participants reasoned more in terms of the Ethic of Divinity than progressivists. However, cross-cultural differences were also found. Progressivist Americans more than progressivist Indians tended toward hyperindividualism.

Extending the semi-involuntary institution : Regional differences and social constraints on private religious consumption among African Americans

Abstract: Private religious consumption has been neglected by most prior research and theory examining religious markets. This article begins an initial assessment of how private religious consumption operates. We investigate private religious behavior among African Americans, to see if these individual religious activities respond to preferences and social contexts in the same way as public religious expressions. Our findings indicate that individuals' religious preferences are not as important for predicting prayer, watching religious television and listening to religious radio broadcasts, or reading religious literature in the rural South. We conclude that the semi-involuntary nature of religious behavior for African Americans in the South - and especially the rural South - extends to private religious actions. Further, in contrast to both the decline of denominationalism thesis and speculation about the monolithic nature of the black church, we show that denominational ties influence private religious behavior.

Devotion in Dixie and beyond: A Test of the "Shibley Thesis" on the Effects of Regional Origin and Migration on Individual Religiosity

Abstract: This article examines the relative prominence of religion in the American South, in light of two contemporary phenomena: increased interregional mobility in the United States, and the rise of American evangelicalism. We investigate the effects of regional migration and non-migration on church attendance and importance of faith in the South as compared to the rest of the country. Results show that religiosity increases when people move to a region of high religious commitment, and decreases when one moves to an area where religious commitment is lower. The evidence suggests that the South maintains its religious distinctiveness for natives, but the prospects of maintaining as strong a religiosity for those who migrate out of the South are low. These findings call into question Mark Shibley's thesis (1996) about the sources of the resurgence of American evangelicalism.

Parents, religion and perceived social coherence : A Durkheimian framework of adolescent anomie : Symposium on religion, health, and well-being

Abstract: Different aspects of religiosity have been found to be positively related to physical, psychological and social well-being. Several scholars have suggested that religious beliefs, religious communities, and perceived divine support may provide individuals with a sense of coherence, which in turn has positive effects on individual well-being. This coherence hypothesis is in fact the inverse of the Durkheimian concept of anomie. This paper specifies and tests a structural model of social control, social support, religious participation, religious orthodoxy, and perceived divine support, in relation to perceived exteriority and constraint among adolescents. The results indicate that parental support and religious participation increases the perceived exteriority and constraint of the social world, while parental rule setting, religious orthodoxy, and divine support do not have an independent effect.

Religious beliefs and therapeutic orientations of clinical and counseling psychologists

Abstract: A 65-item questionnaire was used to examine the relations among religious beliefs and psychotherapeutic orientations in a national sample of 237 clinical and counseling psychologists. Sixty-six percent of these psychologists believed in the transcendent ; 72% asserted that their religious beliefs influenced their practice of psychotherapy, and 66% claimed that their practice of therapy influenced their religious beliefs. Psychologists who affirmed Christian beliefs tended to endorse the cognitive-behavioral orientation, and those who affirmed Eastern and mystical beliefs tended to endorse humanistic and existential orientations These findings suggest (a) that most psychologists synthesize personal Weltanschauungen composed of elements derived from both their study of psychology and their exposure to religion and (b) that these syntheses are not random, that specific religious beliefs are differentially associated with specific psychotherapeutic orientations.