Psychology of religionconsists of the application of psychological methods and interpretive frameworks to the diverse contents of religious traditions as well as to both religious and irreligious individuals. The various methods and frameworks can be summarized according to the classic distinction between the natural-scientific and human-scientific approaches. The first cluster amounts to objective, quantitative, and preferably experimental procedures for testing hypotheses about causal connections among the objects of one's study. In contrast, the human-scientific approach accesses the human world of experience using qualitative, phenomenological, and interpretive methods. This approach aims to discern meaningful, rather than causal, connections among the phenomena one seeks to understand.
Psychologists of religion pursue three major projects: systematic description, especially of religious contents, attitudes, experiences, and expressions explanation of the origins of religion, both in the history of the human race and in individual lives, taking into account a diversity of influences mapping out the consequences of religious attitudes and conduct, both for the individual and for society at large. The psychology of religion first arose as a self-conscious discipline in the late 19th century, but all three of these tasks have a history going back many centuries before that.Wulff, D. M. (2010). Psychology of Religion. In D. A. Leeming, K. Madden, & S. Marian (Eds.), Encyclopedia of Psychology and Religion (pp. 732–735). New York; London: Springer.
Overview The challenge for the psychology of religion is essentially threefold: to provide a thoroughgoing description of the objects of investigation, whether they be shared religious content (e.g., a tradition's ritual observances) or individual experiences, attitudes, or conduct; to account in psychological terms for the rise of such phenomena, whether they be in individual lives or not; to clarify the outcomesthe fruits, as William James put itof these phenomena, for individuals, and the larger society. These fruits may be both positive and negative.
The first, descriptive task naturally requires a clarification of one's termsabove all, the word religion. Historians of religion have long underscored the problematic character of this term. They note that its usage over the centuries has changed in significant ways, generally in the direction of reification.Smith, W. C. (1963). The Meaning and End of Religion: A New Approach to the Religious Traditions of Mankind. New York: Macmillan. The early psychologists of religion were fully aware of these difficulties, typically acknowledging that the definitions they chose were to some degree arbitrary.Wulff, D. M. (1999). Psychologists Define Religion: Patterns and Prospects of a Century-Long Quest. In J. G. Platvoet and A. L. Molendijk (Eds.), The Pragmatics of Defining Religion: Contexts, Concepts, and Contests (pp. 207–224). Leiden: Brill With the rise of positivistic trends in psychology over the 20th century, especially the demand that all phenomena be operationalized by quantitative procedures, psychologists of religion developed a multitude of scales, most of them developed for use by Protestant Christians.Hill, P. C., and Hood, R. W., Jr. (Eds.). (1999). Measures of Religiosity. Birmingham, AL: Religious Education Press. Factor analysis was also brought into play by both psychologists and sociologists of religion, to establish a fixed core of dimensions and a corresponding set of scales. The justification and adequacy of these efforts, especially in the light of constructivist and other postmodern viewpoints, remains a matter of debate.
In the last several decades, especially among clinical psychologists, a preference for the terms "spirituality" and "spiritual" has emerged, along with efforts to distinguish them from "religion" and "religious." Especially in the United States, "religion" has for many become associated with sectarian institutions and their obligatory creeds and rituals, thus giving the word a negative cast; "spirituality", in contrast, is positively constructed as deeply individual and subjective, as a universal capacity to apprehend and accord one's life with higher realities. In fact, "spirituality" has likewise undergone an evolution in the West, from a time when it was essentially a synonym for religion in its original, subjective meaning. Today, efforts are ongoing to "operationalize" these terms, with little regard for their history in their Western context, and with the apparent realist assumption that underlying them are fixed qualities identifiable using empirical procedures.Hill, P. C. (2005). Measurement in the Psychology of Religion and Spirituality: Current Status and Evaluation. In
Schnitker and Emmons theorized that the understanding of religion as a search for meaning makes implications in the three psychological areas of motivation, cognition and social relationships. The cognitive aspects relate to God and a sense of purpose, the motivational ones to the need to control, and the religious search for meaning is also woven into social communities.
History
Edwin Diller Starbuck Edwin Diller Starbuck is considered a pioneer of the psychology of religion and his book Psychology of Religion (1899) has been described as the first book in the genre. This book was endorsed by William James who collaborated by writing its preface. Starbuck's work would influence James on writing his own book, The Varieties of Religious Experience, with James thanking him in the preface for having "made over to me his large collection of manuscript material". In the book itself James mentions Starbuck's name 46 times and cites him on several different occasions.
William James American psychologist and philosopher William James (1842–1910) is regarded by most psychologists of religion as the founder of the field.Spilka, Hood, Hunsberger and Gorsuch, 2003, The Psychology of Religion, p. 24 He served as president of the American Psychological Association, and wrote one of the first psychology textbooks. In the psychology of religion, James' influence endures. His Varieties of Religious Experience is considered to be the classic work in the field, and references to James' ideas are common at professional conferences.
James distinguished between institutional religion and personal religion. Institutional religion refers to the religious group or organization and plays an important part in a society's culture. Personal religion, in which the individual has mystical experience, can be experienced regardless of the culture.James was most interested in understanding personal religious experience.
In studying personal religious experiences, James made a distinction between healthy-minded and sick-souled religiousness. Individuals predisposed to healthy-mindedness tend to ignore the evil in the world and focus on the positive and the good. James used examples of Walt Whitman and the "mind-cure" religious movement to illustrate healthy-mindedness in The Varieties of Religious Experience. In contrast, individuals predisposed to having a sick-souled religion are unable to ignore evil and suffering and need a unifying experience, religious or otherwise, to reconcile good and evil. James included quotations from Leo Tolstoy and John Bunyan to illustrate the sick soul.
William James' hypothesis of pragmatism stems from the efficacy of religion. If an individual believes in and performs religious activities, and those actions happen to work, then that practice appears the proper choice for the individual. However, if the processes of religion have little efficacy, then there is no rationality for continuing the practice.
In The Varieties of Religious Experience, James defined religion as "the feelings, acts, and experiences of individuals in relation to what they perceive as the divine," emphasizing that religion should be studied through our personal consciousness rather than a fixed, rigid, institutional doctrine. Additionally, he also explored a multitude of religious processes, including religious conversion, distinguishing between gradual and sudden transformations in belief and identity and the reasons of which why they happen. On top of that, he analyzed mystical experiences and identifying characteristics such as ineffability, noetic quality (feels like truth/knowledge), transiency, and passivity (not controlled by the person). His pragmatic approach further argued that religious beliefs should be evaluated based on their psychological effects on individuals, playing a large role in establishing the foundation for the psychology of religion as a scientific field.
James also believed that the different religious experiences could bring benefits and positive outcomes to society. In Varieties of Religious Experience, he says: "We must judge the tree by its fruit. The best fruits of the religious experience are the best things history has to offer. The highest flights of charity, devotion, trust, patience, and bravery to which the wings of human nature have spread themselves, have all been flown for religious ideals."
― William James, The Varieties of Religious Experience
Other early theorists
G.W.F. Hegel Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831) described all systems of religion, philosophy, and social science as expressions of the basic urge of consciousness to learn about itself and its surroundings, and record its findings and hypotheses. Thus, religion is only a form of that search for knowledge, within which humans record various experiences and reflections. Others, compiling and categorizing these writings in various ways, form the consolidated worldview as articulated by that religion, philosophy, social science, etc. His work The Phenomenology of Spirit was a study of how various types of writing and thinking draw from and re-combine with the individual and group experiences of various places and times, influencing the current forms of knowledge and worldviews that are operative in a population. This activity is the functioning of an incomplete group mind, where each is accessing the recorded wisdom of others. His works often include detailed descriptions of the psychological motivations involved in thought and behavior, e.g., the struggle of a community or nation to know itself and thus correctly govern itself. In Hegel's system, Religion is one of the major repositories of wisdom to be used in these struggles, representing a huge body of recollections from humanity's past in various stages of its development.
Sigmund Freud
Sigmund Freud (1856–1939) gave explanations of the genesis of religion in his various writings. In Totem and Taboo, he applied the idea of the Oedipus complex (involving unresolved sexual feelings of, for example, a son toward his mother and hostility toward his father) and postulated its emergence in the primordial stage of human development.Freud, S., Totem and Taboo: Resemblances Between the Psychic Lives of Savages and Neurotics, New-York, Dodd, 1928.
In Moses and Monotheism, Freud reconstructed biblical history by his general theory. His ideas were also developed in The Future of an Illusion.Freud, S., The future of an illusion, translated by W.D. Robson-Scott, New York, Liveright, 1928. When Freud spoke of religion as an illusion, he maintained that it "is a fantasy structure from which a man must be set free if he is to grow to maturity."
Freud viewed the idea of God as being a version of the father image, and religious belief as at bottom infantile and neurotic. Authoritarian religion, Freud believed, is dysfunctional and alienates man from himself.
Carl Jung