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The psychology of religion was central to psychology at its inception as an independent empirical discipline. The classic American work of the early period was William James' Varieties of Religious Experience. Important contributions of a different character were made by Freud, who developed a critique of religion, and by Jung, who was more ...
- Religious Belief
A social cognitive perspective on religious beliefs: their...
- The Contribution of Self-Determination Theory
These two different forms of internalization of religious...
- Attitudes Towards Science
Research in social and cognitive psychology has explored...
- View Chapter
Baumeister (1987) argues that these historical shifts have...
- Religious Belief
Religious studies. Religious studies, also known as the study of religion, is the scientific study of religion. There is no consensus on what qualifies as religion and its definition is highly contested. It describes, compares, interprets, and explains religion, emphasizing empirical, historically based, and cross-cultural perspectives.
The Psychology of Religion is defined as a social scientific approach that studies the empirical aspects of religion, including religious change, experiences, and the relationship between religion and brain processes. It also explores methodological issues, the individual-social environment relationship, and the formation of human beliefs and ...
- Nature/World
- Life and Death
- Reality
- Knowledge
- Truth
- Perception
- Time
- Consciousness
- Rationality/Reason
- Mystery
Psychology of religion studies human religiousness as a natural process in the same sense that any science studies its phenomena. The methodology of the field assumes that principles of nature actually work and that these are either knowable or at least that we can create theories as attempts to summarize what we think they might be.
The object of study in psychology is the mental and behavioral processes in living human beings. We generally leave precise scientific definitions of life and death to biology and medicine. So in psychology of religion, we study human mental and behavioral processes with unique attention to those through which religiousness in all its manifestation...
As is the case with the rest of psychology, the psychology of religion does one of two things with respect to the concept of reality. Either (1) it assumes that there is one and we proceed to study it or our perception of it, or (2) it assumes nothing either way about its ontological existence and instead takes mental reality as the only reality to...
The area of knowledge about which the psychology of religion is concerned focuses on the processes that mediate human religiousness in its myriad variations. Such knowledge is not regarded as absolute or binding for all peoples in all religions at all times, but is instead, as is the case with all scientific knowledge, tentative, probabilistic, and...
Psychology of religion takes no position on whether or not there is an absolute “truth.” Truths in psychology of religion are scientific truths, therefore always tentative, probabilistic, and subject to change based upon further evidence.
Psychology of religion is to a great extent concerned with human perception, in particular with the emphasis on “religious experience” such as claims of having heard God’s voice; apparitions of Jesus, Mary, of other religious figures; to have seen Satan; and other nonnormal purported experiences and perceptions (Taves 2009). Although we cannot “see...
Because human religiousness, like other aspects of human functioning, occurs across time, time perception and accounting for variation across time is inherent in the conduct of work in the field. In addition to studying religiousness in real time in vivo, all other ways of studying it automatically involve a time dimension, whether implicit or expl...
Consciousness as an area of psychological study is important because with the reintroduction of the study of consciousness to psychology came the reintroduction of the study of religious consciousness, mysticism, experiences deemed religious or spiritual, and such things as religious or spiritual manifestations of seeing visions, hearing voices, an...
The psychology of religion sees rationality and reason as human capabilities that are more or less invoked as means of regulating other aspects of human functioning such as decision making. These processes can be applied to greater or lesser degrees to one’s religiousness in a manner similar to any other aspect of one’s functioning. The limits of r...
One could say that part of the core of the psychology of religion concerns mystery. This is because of its topic of study – religion or religiousness. Religions seem to be among the things that humans have and do as a way of dealing with, and living within, the big and unanswered (and perhaps unanswerable) questions about life, death, and why we ar...
- paloutz@westmont.edu
The science of psychology is an attempt to analyze every part of the human experience and behavior. The psychology of religion aims to uncover the impact of relationships in religion in order to predict behaviors. It is meant to connect religious consciousness with religious patterns and behaviors. While many psychologists have defined religion ...
study of religion, attempt to understand the various aspects of religion, especially through the use of other intellectual disciplines. The study of religion emerged as a formal discipline during the 19th century, when the methods and approaches of history, philology, literary criticism, psychology, anthropology, sociology, economics, and other ...
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This introduction to the special section recounts the events that led to it and the rationale for it. The goals for this special section are to address the appropriate focus for our field and this journal with concrete suggestions, to address specifically the issue of Theistic Psychology as one approach, and to identify connections between our area and the field of Psychology more generally ...
