WHEN MEANINGS DIFFER

We can be grateful that the authors discussed above tried to theorize reli- gion; this is valuable in ways that do not require any particular view to be

“the correct view.” It seldom happens in science that a particular argument contains the total truth about a process or phenomenon. Much more com- monly people offer points of view, arguments based on their definitions and available observations, and presuppositions, and the mix of these leads to a theoretical idea that is a contribution, but not Truth. This characterizes the preceding list of theoretical ideas. At this stage it is not particularly important that one of them be true and the others false. What matters is that the authors have provided steppingstones that future scholars can put their feet on and take another step forward, or, if lucky, upward toward a higher level of knowledge.

The range of theories summarized above provides a set of ideas to think through and work from, or perhaps respond against, but they do not seem close to synthesis. How do they fare when stacked up against, or upon, the fundamental backdrop issue, as construed by Kirkpatrick (2005, 2013), noted in the opening of this chapter?

Theories Not about the Same Thing

Scanning the theoretical ideas sketched above may leave you at a loss in terms of attempting any synthesis of them. Part of the problem is that each attempt at writing a theoretical idea to explain “religion” uses a different definition of religion. One is about superhuman counterintuitive agents, one is about anthropomorphizing nonliving and other nonhuman objects, one is about symbolism and ritual, one is about group selection, and one is about Big Gods and their surrogates in society as mechanisms of social con- trol. One says that unconscious motivations are the roots of religiousness, another disregards the notion of an unconscious mind, and another focuses on why an individual might join a religious group. One considers “religion”

in an individual’s brain; another considers “religion” to be a group process.

One says it is about individual identity while others say it is about safety, security, or “meaning.” They are not theories about the same thing.

Some of the theories are presented as cognitively rooted, but cogni- tions are about meanings and most theories listed above say little about how their proposed mechanisms work within meaning systems relation- ships. Also, religions are social, but only some of the views above make social psychological knowledge part of, let alone central to, the theory in question. A first glance suggests that the foci of each of these theories may address a set of features of whatever “religion” might mean, but only a few and far from all. Because of this, it may confuse more than it helps when authors say they are “explaining religion” (e.g., Boyer, 2001). They are not.

At the very best, they may make a reasonable attempt at illuminating a few aspects of this highly complex cultural concept.

One of the theories is based on the notion that there are cognitive

“constraints” that “bias” how humans process certain information, and

that the combination of these constraints and biases leads to the evolution of religious thoughts, beliefs, symbols, and rituals. But I am not sure this enlightens us much. Why does it sound illuminating to say that our minds can do only what they can do, and that they therefore distort some infor- mation because there are limits on the amount of information they can process at once? However, it is good that this is said because, probably, many people think the human mind is a generic information processer that has no limits— something that is decidedly false. Also, the views above provide service to the field in general because they comprise a set of serious attempts to account for religiousness— its psychological functions, cogni- tive processes, groupness, and origins— in all its complexity. Then, from the platform sketched in this chapter, we can go further.

One dilemma is that some of the cognitive theories seem as if they are intended to “explain” religion by going from culture straight to the brain and cognition without going through the whole human, as if neurons and cognitions have a direct, instant, hotline of communication full of mean- ings that include the cultural context and therefore do not interact with anything in between. In light of the MIP and Glimcher’s (2011) illustra- tions of how it is necessary to relate knowledge at adjacent levels (Chap- ter 2), such reasoning seems simplistic at best and illusory at worst. Our understanding of human religiousness and spirituality cannot go directly from the brain or cognition to culture. It must go through, not around, the various processes that comprise whole humans.

The Adaptation–By­Product Issue

In either explicit or implied form, the by- product- versus- adaptation issue seems to filter through some of the theories at various levels of analysis.

However this question might be resolved, we are left with the question of whether the adaptation or by- product had its origins in micro- or macro- level processes. If what we are aiming to pin down is “religion” in whatever form it may accurately be seen, did it develop primarily at the neurological level or at the ecocultural level? In other words, by whatever means “reli- gion” or “spirituality” came to be, is it best that we look for it somewhere in the brain or somewhere in the human sociocultural niche? Maybe we would find religion’s roots in one psychological location and level of analy- sis and spirituality’s roots in another (Chapter 1).

A reasonable assessment of the adaptation– by- product issue may be that what was adaptive, and therefore what evolved, could not have been

“religion” in any sense in which it is typically defined. The minority of the world’s population that is not religious (Chapter 1) is too big for that.

However, there is an argument that the process of making, assessing, and modifying meaning out of ambiguity in whatever way worked for the survival needs and continuity of humans did evolve (Prelude to Part II).

By evolutionary selection, people certainly are “born believers” (Barrett, 2012) in the sense that all humans are automatically engaged in the funda- mental process of believing (Seitz & Angel, 2014; Siguria, Seitz, & Angel, 2015). But this fundamental process does not require that any individual believe religious things in the same sense that it requires humans believe that eating food will nourish one’s body. Eating food is required in order to live; believing or practicing a thing typically called religious is not. Thus, the process of believing certain things is a requirement, but believing or practicing a religion does not seem to be among them.

Application and Looking Ahead

The theories summarized above come into play in various ways throughout the rest of this book. For example, Freud’s theory is important in Chapter 6 when we look for religiousness in the individual. The cognitive approaches are relevant to discussions in Chapter 5 as we think through cognitive developmental implications for religiousness. The neurological approach is relevant to Chapter 8 in its examination of research on mental experiences to which religious attributions are made. Various theories bear directly or indirectly on understanding religious conversion, the relationships between religion and mental health, and the effects of religion on social behavior, discussed in Chapters 7, 9, and 11, respectively. An attributional approach applies in many areas as an illustration of how people can make religious meaning out of ambiguous information and shape responses consistent with it. We pick up these substantive topics after gaining a good under- standing of the methods used to conduct the research.

TAKE- HOME MESSAGES h

h An overarching evolutionary meta- theory has integrated the evidence across the sciences; thus, any theory about the psychological processes that mediate religiousness will need to do the same to stand the tests of time and evidence. The religion as adaptation- versus- by- product issue is fundamental to psychological understanding.

h

h Midlevel theoretical statements have been attempted from the micro to the macro level, including those resting upon neurology, cognition, group selection, and the development of cultures. Each one, however, defines religion in its own way. Therefore, revision and/or synthesis of these ideas is a task for the future.

h

h Psychodynamic and depth psychological approaches focus on unconscious processes at the root of religiousness. They range from the “negative” (religion is mainly an anxiety reducer) to the “positive”

(God is an archetype that fulfills built-in spirituality).

h

h Attachment theory is a midlevel approach that accounts for how people make inferences about other people’s motives and the causes for their behavior. As such, it is useful in helping us understand religious relationships and conversions.

h

h Uncertainty– identity theory and cultural psychology enrich our understanding of religiousness by highlighting how aligning oneself with a group and using cultural norms as guides to what to believe and how to live reduce the appearance of ambiguity, thereby heightening a sense of meaning.

h

h Attributions are meanings inferred. They are implicit in religious belief and behavior at all levels.

h

h The theories of various aspects of religion can be usefully categorized according to their particular emphasis, or the kind of question they are primarily aimed at answering. These include questions about the psychological functions served by a religion, the neural and cognitive substrates through which religious information is processed, why

“groupness” is a typical aspect of religions, and how religiousness originated in early humans.

FURTHER RE ADING

Bellah, R. N. (2011). Religion in human evolution: From the paleolithic to the axial age. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Corveleyn, J., Luyten, P., & Dezutter, J. (2013). Psychodynamic psychology and religion. In R. F. Paloutzian & C. L. Park (Eds.), Handbook of the psychology of religion and spirituality (2nd ed., pp. 94–117). New York: Guilford Press.

Kirkpatrick, L. A. (2005). Attachment, evolution, and the psychology of religion.

New York: Guilford Press.

Lee, Y.-T., & Kanazawa, S. (2015). Nature and evolution of totemism, shamanism, religions, and spirituality [Special issue]. Psychology of Religion and Spiritu- ality, 7(4).

Saroglou, V., & Cohen, A. B. (Eds.). (2011). Religion and culture: Perspectives from cultural and cross- cultural psychology [Special issue]. Journal of Cross- Cultural Psychology, 42(8).

Strausberg, M. (Ed.). (2009). Contemporary theories of religion: A critical com- panion. New York: Routledge.

Schloss, J., & Murray, M. J. (Eds.). (2009). The believing primate: Scientific, phil- osophical, and theological reflections on the origin of religion. Oxford, UK:

Oxford University Press.

109

Focus: Religiousness in the Individual and People in General Measuring Religious and Spirituality Variables

Research Methods Take-Home Messages

Further Reading

t

his chapter has a key theme: Just how do we know what we think we know, and how do we form scholarly questions, let alone propose knowledge, about something as multilayered, and as fraught, as religion?

Several strategies are frequently used. Each employs one or more methods and provides a different type of information, but they all are intended to follow the same logic—that which is illustrated via the research cycle pre- sented in Chapter 2 and Figure 2.1. The two basic methodological concerns for doing psychological research on religion and spirituality are (1) what general approach to use (i.e., whom do you study, how, and exactly what, psychologically, are you are trying to learn about them?), and (2) how to measure the aspects of religiousness that will logically answer your ques- tions.

It is easy for a psychology researcher to fall into the trap of think- ing that there is a best way to do conduct research, that is, the way he or she does it. But when it comes to doing research in the psychology of religiousness, nothing could be further from the truth. Research means to re- search, to look for again, to examine one more time and find out more.

In the Flemish Dutch language, the word for research is onderzoek—to seek underneath, to search deeper. There are many procedures for doing this, each one having its special strength, each one complementary to the

Logic and Methods

in the Psychology of Religion

rest. Some allow us to answer questions about behavior, some about feel- ings, some about attitudes. With some we examine ongoing action; with others we examine traces left by past action; with others we study imagined interactions, wishes, fantasies.

The techniques sketched below are not mutually exclusive. They can overlap and be used effectively to explore a common question, even in the same study. Taken together and used effectively to study a central question, they can yield a rich mosaic of results that address a common theme. They feed into the research cycle and stimulate theory development. When the research is carried far enough, the knowledge gained begins to interface with knowledge from other areas within psychology and with knowledge from allied sciences and humanities. This process fits what is suggested by the multilevel interdisciplinary paradigm (MIP) in fostering an apprecia- tion for what is said in combination with the data obtained by multiple methods (Hood & Belzen, 2005, 2013).

FOCUS: RELIGIOUSNESS IN THE INDIVIDUAL