Research methods in the psychology of religion

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Research methods in the psychology of religion
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Research methods

• Initially the field dominated by correlational
  research.
• More recently a shift towards experimental
  paradigm.
• Emmons and Paloutzian (2003) called for a
  multilevel interdisciplinary paradigm.
• Different methods provide a more complete
  understanding of religious phenomena than can be
  achieved by any single method (Hood Belzen,
  2005).

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Chemical facilitation of religious/spiritual
experiences

• Researchers have investigated the effects of
  chemicals that facilitate religious / spiritual
  experience (entheogens).
• The Good Friday experiment (Pahnke, 1969)
  assessed the spiritual significance of chemically
  triggered experiences
• Participants who were given psilocybin responded
  to Staces (1960) criteria of mysticism more than
  controls.

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Key website
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Chemical facilitation of religious/spiritual
experiences

• Strassman (2001) investigated the effects of
  N-dimethyltryptamine (DMT).
• DMT-facilitated states of consciousness may be
  similar to those that occur in near death
  experiences, mystical experiences and alien
  abduction encounters.
• Oxman et al. (1988) reported that experiences
  facilitated by psychoactive chemicals were
  dominated by words referring to sense impressions
  while mystical / ecstatic experiences were
  associated by words referring to life altering
  religious encounters.

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Cognitive Dissonance and Failed Prophecy

• Faced with belief disconfirming information
  devout believers are likely to hold firmer to,
  rather than abandon, their beliefs (Batson et
  al., 1993).
• Quasi-experimental laboratory research supports
  the assumption that people are driven by the need
  to reduce dissonance and hence refuse to accept
  disconfirmation.
• However, participant observation, interview and
  ethnomethodological studies indicate that the
  most common response of members within groups is
  to deny the failure of prophecy and to seek an
  interpretive frame within which their beliefs
  continue to make sense (Dein, 1997 Tumminia,
  1998).

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Key books

• Festinger, L., Riecken, H.W., Schacter, S.
  (1956). When prophecy fails A social and
  psychological study of a modern group that
  predicted the destruction of the world.
  Minnesota University of Minnesota Press

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Cognitive Dissonance and Failed Prophecy

• Understanding that different research methods
  yield differing views illustrates the value of a
  call for a new multilevel interdisciplinary
  paradigm.
• The failure to acknowledge prophetic failure is
  an inconsistency likely to be perceived by
  outsiders but not by members inside the religious
  groups.

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Natural manipulations in quasi experimental field
studies

• Field studies can have the advantage of being
  more consistent with real life while
  maintaining the internal validity of an
  experiment.
• For example, Hood (1978) found that low
  anticipatory stress / high stress setting and
  high anticipatory stress / low stress setting
  elicited a greater magnitude of religious
  experience than stress congruity conditions

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Correlational and survey studies - religious and
spiritual experience

• A third to a half of the populations surveyed
  affirmed religious or spiritual experiences.
• Survey research suggests that 9 of the general
  population identifies themselves as nonrleigious
  while 31 of psychologists identifies themselves
  as nonrleigious.

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Authoritarianism, dogmatism, and religion

• Authoritarianism is generally correlated with
  religious fundamentalism.
• However, given that most measures of
  fundamentalism are belief oriented, orthodoxy
  is often a synonym for fundamentalism. Thus
  strong correlations are built in between
  orthodoxy and authoritarianism (Altemeyer,1988
  Gorsuch Alshire,1974).

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Mystical experiences

• Meditative and contemplative prayer may lead to
  mystical experiences.
• Intrinsic religionists reported more religious
  imagery in an isolation tank than extrinsic
  religionists (Hood Morris, 1981).

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Paranormal experiences

• Paranormal experience is a consistent correlate
  of religious experience.
• Multiple methods reveal a strong relationship
  between belief in God and belief in paranormal
  phenomena.

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Religion / spirituality

• In many instances spirituality measures function
  the same as religiosity measures.
• In U.S. most people who identify themselves as
  religious also identify themselves as spiritual.

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Religion and attachment

• Insecure anxious people were more likely to
  report having had a religious experience or
  conversion than either secure or ambivalent
  attachment types (Kirkpatrick, 1997).

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Studies with children and adolescents

• A useful technique for children and adolescents
  is to describe an experience and ask them if they
  ever had an experience like the one described.
• Pafford (1973) concluded that transcendent
  experiences are most common in the middle teens
  under conditions of solitude.
• Tamminen (1991) reported that the percentage of
  children reporting an experience of nearness to
  God declines with age.

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Key papers

• Francis, L.J., ap Siôn T., Lewis, C.A., Barnes,
  L.P., Robbins, M. (2006). Attitude toward
  Christianity and religious experience
  Replication among 16- to 18- year-old adolescents
  in Northern Ireland. Research in Education, 76,
  56-61.

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Narrative psychology and psychoanalysis

• The focus upon narrative psychology has been
  useful in studies of conversion.
• Narrative analysis focuses upon the means by
  which individuals utilize the language of their
  culture and tradition to construct the story of
  their own spiritual or religious transformation.

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Narrative psychology and psychoanalysis

• Psychoanalytic theory is a rich source for
  hypotheses that can be empirically studied by a
  variety of means.
• For example, attachment style and image of the
  Virgin Mary (Carroll, 1983).
• An appropriate method to explore psychoanalytic
  theory and psychological narrative is to use
  archive-taped interviews so that other
  researchers can evaluate the original material.

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Serpent handlers and the multilevel
interdisciplinary paradigm

• Hood and his colleagues used a variety of
  methodological approaches when studying serpent
  handling religious sects in the U.S.
• Methods included both qualitative and
  quantitative field and lab work.
• No single method could capture the variety of
  questions that could be asked of this unique
  tradition.

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Key books

• Hood, R.W. Kimbrough, D. (1995). Serpent
  handling sects Theoretical considerations.
  Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, 34,
  311-322. 
• Morrow, J. Hood, R.W.  (2005). Handling
  serpents, Pastor Jimmys Narrative  history of
  his Appalachian Jesus Name Tradition. Macon, GA 
  Mercer Univ. Press.

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Key websites

• http//youtube.com/watch?vwpVffsJ0OhA
• Pentecostal Snake Handlers in Appalachia
  documentary

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