The Psychology of Religious Behaviour, Belief and Experience

The psychology of religious behaviour, belief and experience The Psychology o f Religious Behaviour, Belief and Experience is the most comprehensive survey available of theories and research on religion from the perspective of psychology. Religious belief is never evenly distributed, and is correlated with such variables as social background, gender and personality characteristics. Beit-Hallahmi and Argyle use findings in these areas to test numerous explanations of the origins and functions of religion in human culture. They also consider social consequences of religiosity, religious experience, religious attitudes, the effect of religion on health, the acquisition of beliefs, conversion, and the benefits or otherwise of religion. Their main conclusion is that religiosity is first and foremost social, and is learned like other kinds of social acts. Benjamin Beit-Hallahmi and Michael Argyle are renowned for their clear, analytical approach, and this new state-of-the-art study of psychology and religion is no exception. It will be welcomed as an update to their pre vious work in the area by social psychologists, sociologists and theologians worldwide. Benjamin Beit-Hallahmi is Professor of Psychology, University of Haifa, Israel, and the author of several books, including The Social Psychology of Religion (1975) with Michael Argyle. Michael Argyle is Emeritus Professor of Psychology, Oxford Brookes University, and has written over twenty books, including The Social Psychology of Everyday Life (1992) and The Psychology of Social Class (1994). This page intentionally left blank The psychology of religious behaviour, belief and experience Benjamin Beit-Hallahmi and Michael Argyle O Routledge § Taylor &. Francis Group LONDON AND NEW YORK First published 1997 by Routledge 27 Church Road, Hove, East Sussex BN3 2FA Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by Routledge 711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017 Reprinted 2004 Transferred to digital printing 2007 Routledge is an imprint o f the Taylor & Francis Group, an Informa business €> 1997 Benjamin Beit-Hallahmi and Michael Argyle Typeset in Times by Keystroke, Jacaranda Lodge, Wolverhampton This publication has been produced with paper manufactured to strict environmental standards and with pulp derived from sustainable forests. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. British Library> Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library o f Congress Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book has been requested ISBN 978-0-415-12331-0 Publisher’s Note The publisher has gone to great lengths to ensure the quality of this reprint but points out that some imperfections in the original may be apparent. Contents List of figures viii List of tables ix Preface xi Acknowledgements xii 1 Religious phenomena and their interpretations 1 The phenomena: ecstasy and routine 1 Defining psychology and religion 5 Relevance of psychological data and findings 7 2 Explanations and research hypotheses 10 Origin hypotheses 11 Maintenance hypotheses 24 Consequence hypotheses 31 Testing the explanations 33 3 Research methods: methods of studying religious phenomena, their correlates, causes and effects 34 Variability in religiosity 34 Direct and indirect ways: learning about religion by looking at either the believers, or the beliefs 36 Rules of the game: admissible evidence 37 Descriptions, surveys, and measures of religious behaviour 39 Experimentation 47 4 Ritual and clergy 49 Rites o f passage 49 Worship in groups 54 The clergy 63 Conclusion 71 5 Religious experience 73 Surveys of religious experience 73 The varieties of religious experience 76 Demographic variations in religious experiences 80 vi Contents Traditional methods of arousing religious experiences 81 Experimental induction of religious experiences 85 The effect o f religious experiences 89 Background and personality factors 90 Explanations of religious experience 93 The social aspect of religious experiences 95 Conclusions and final comments 96 6 Acquiring religious beliefs: socialization and continuity 97 Religious socialization: social and interpersonal influences 91 Family influences 98 Parental images and the deities 106 Formal religious education 109 Differences in denominations and traditions 111 Conclusions 112 7 Changing beliefs and identities: conversion, religious movements, and defection 114 Conversion 114 Recruitment 123 Recruitment campaigns 128 Religious movements 130 Apostasy, atheism, and disbelief 135 Conclusions 138 8 Religion as a dependent variable: gender, age, class, and community 139 Gender differences 139 Age and religiosity 147 Social class and community size 155 Conclusions 162 9 The effect of individual differences in personality and ability 163 The effects o f heredity 163 General personality traits 164 Self-esteem 165 Authoritarianism 165 Dogmatism and cognitive complexity 167 Suggestibility 171 Locus of control 173 Intrinsic and extrinsic religiosity 173 Personality and intense forms of religiosity 175 Dynamics of handling guilt and anger 176 Intelligence and other abilities Yll The religiosity o f academics and professionals 178 Conclusions 183 Contents vii 10 The effects of religiosity: individual level 184 Happiness and the quality o f life 184 Health 187 Mental health 189 Religious ideas in psychiatric disorders 191 Fear o f death 193 Suicide 197 Helping, compassion, honesty, and altruism 200 Sexual behaviour 204 Summary: individual functioning 206 11 The effects of religiosity: group level 208 Fertility 208 Divorce 210 Crime and deviance 211 Work and achievement 213 Prejudice and ethnocentrism 218 Political involvement 221 Social integration or social exclusion 226 Conclusions 229 12 Evidence, inferences, and interpretations 230 The problem of cross-cultural generalizations 230 Other problems in testing theoretical explanations 231 Evidence for specific propositions 232 References 257 Author index 303 Subject index 316 Figures 4.1 A predictive model of evangelism 58 4.2 Personality of male and female Anglican ordinands as measured using the Eysenck Personality Questionnaire 66 6.1 Models of male and female adolescent religious belief and commitment 104-5 6.2 Path analysis of the predictors of attitudes to Christianity of 15-16 year olds 110 8.1 Experience of God’s nearness 149 8.2 Frequency of church attendance 1972-91, for ages 18-88, of male/female white Protestants/Catholics 153 9.1 Theoretical model of religion and support for corporal punishment 166 9.2 The effect of ‘dogmatism’ on the tendency to reject members of other religions 168-9 9.3 Degree of certainty of judgments on (a) non-religious, (b) religious propositions 170 10.1 Religious buffering of uncontrollable negative events 190 10.2 Percentage of household income contributed by contributing US households for total, religious, and non-religious contributions 202 11.1 Total marital fertility rates for US Catholics and non-Catholics from survey data, 1951-75 209 11.2 Prejudice and church attendance 219 Tables 2.1 Proposed theoretical explanation 11 2.2 Types of projection 19 2.3 Proposed relationships between deprivation and the development of religious groups 30 3.1 Items on the intrinsic and extrinsic scales of the Religious Orientation Scale used by Allport and Ross (1967) 44 3.2 Quest scale 46 4.1 Non-verbal symbols used in rites of passage 50 4.2 Glossolalia in Australia 56 4.3 Ministerial activity scale 70 5.1 Greeley's descriptors of religious experience (RE) 76 5.2 ‘Psychic’ experiences reported 78 5.3 Religious experience in Britain 79 5.4 Denominations and REs: response to the question, ‘Have you ever been aware of or influenced by a presence or a power?’ 80 5.5 Triggers of REs 81 5.6 The Marsh Chapel miracle: the effects of psilocybin on mystical experience 86 5.7 Religious imagery during psychedelic (LSD) experience 87 5.8 Religious experiences under LSD 87 6.1 Effect on behaviour or attitude of US students of that of their parents or friends 100 7.1 Percentages of audiences responding at Billy Graham’s meetings in Britain, 1954-5 129 8.1 Proportion of women and men in different Christian denominations in Australia and the USA 141 8.2 The effect of employment on ritual attendance in the USA and Canada 144 8.3 Percentage of adolescents holding traditional beliefs 151 8.4 Correlations between estimated per caput disposable income and estimated conversion ratios in four authoritarian and four non-authoritarian denominations 159 x Tables 9.1 Personality traits correlated with intrinsic and extrinsic religiosity 174 9.2 Religious affiliation and selected measures of intellectual orientation 179 9.3 Religious affiliation of American scientists (1954), their parents, and US population (1957) 180 10.1 Scores on an index of adjustment, and church membership 185 10.2 Mortality rates of regular church-goers and others 188 10.3 Relation between mental health and three kinds of religiosity 189 10.4 Correlations between death perspectives, modes of death transcendence, and intrinsic/extrinsic religiosity 194 10.5 Death perspectives scales 198 10.6 Religion and sex in the USA 204 10.7 Attitudes to sexual acts 205 11.1 Divorce rates by church and attendance 211 11.2 Intrinsic work ethic

Load more