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Copyright © 2006 Romanian Association for Cognitive Science. All rights reserved.
ISSN: 1224-8398
Volume X, No. 4 (December), 625-635
ABSTRACT
The present study has experimentally investigated the relationship between
religious beliefs and negative emotions. We found that the mere association
of a chain of negative events with the presence of a merciful and omnipotent
spiritual being induces less worry and sadness and increased hope in the
future than when the same events are presented alone. The former religious
attitudes may intensify the impact of the actual religious beliefs in the
generation of positive emotions. We found also that the meaning-making
process induced by the religious beliefs is an implicit, tacit rather than an
explicit inferential process.
During the last 20 years the interest in religion and its connections to
psychology has increased substantially. The topic became accepted as part of
mainstream psychology and psychological intervention once multiculturalism
became a “forth force” in psychology (Worthington, Kurusu, McCullough, &
Sandage, 1996).
In an attempt to define concepts, religiousness came to be considered by
most researchers as a multidimensional construct (Spilka, Hood, & Gorsuch,
1985). Most researches rely on Allport’s (1959) definition of intrinsic versus
extrinsic religiousness. According to Allport, intrinsic religiousness "regards faith
as a supreme value in its own right. It is oriented toward a unification of being,
takes seriously the commandment of brotherhood, and strives to transcend all self-
centered needs" (Allport, 1966 p. 455). On the other hand, extrinsic religiousness is
"strictly utilitarian; useful for the self in granting safety, social standing, solace and
endorsement for one's chosen way of life" (Allport, 1966 p. 455). Although
initially considered bipolar constructs, the two types of religiousness are now
*
Corresponding author:
E-mail: micleamircea@psychology.ro
626 M. Miclea, B. Macavei
Cognition, Brain, Behavior 10 (2006) 625-635
METHOD
Participants
Seventy students from Babes-Bolyai University, assigned in a framing
group and a non-framing group, participated in the study in exchange for course
credits. Eligible subjects were at least 19 years of age, completed study materials,
628 M. Miclea, B. Macavei
Cognition, Brain, Behavior 10 (2006) 625-635
and had no major mental or physical illnesses. Age ranged from 19 to 32 years
(mean age=19.81, SD= 1.70). Eighty-five point seven percentages (85.7%) of the
sample described themselves as Orthodox, 4.3% as Roman-Catholic, 2.9% as
Greek-Catholic, 2.8% as Baptists, and 4.3% as other religion or no religion. Of all
participants, 15.7% were male and 84.3% were female. When questioned about the
importance of religion in their life, 45.7% stated it was very important, 34.3% said
it was important enough, 14.3% indicated medium importance, 4.3% indicated
very little importance, and 1.4% said religion was not important at all.
Materials1
A story was created, describing the following negative chain of events:
1. An astronaut has remained isolated on a remote planet (activating
statistically negative event);
2. Loss of radio contact with other humans (loss situation);
3. Death of the only other survivor who was his friend (loss situation and
social isolation);
4. Progressive sickness and increased physical weakness of the astronaut
(threat situation).
For the framing group, but not for the non-framing group, other two
elements are added:
1. Belief of the astronaut that all events on that planet, are due to the
presence of a spiritual entity (attribution of cause of events);
2. Belief that the spiritual entity has the following characteristic:
unseen;
omnipotent;
kind;
omniscient;
just;
loving;
merciful with the astronauts . These are, in fact the main
characteristics of God extracted from the Holy Bible in a
preliminary study applied to the study situation but the name
of God did not occurred in the story. .
Following the reading of the story the participants from the non-framing
group were asked to answer the following questions:
1. What could the astronaut believe about the troubles he has been
through? (construction of meaning, free answer);
2. How trustful could the astronaut be in his future? (hope in the future,
evaluated on a 1-100 Likert scale);
1
study materials can be obtained on request from the first author (MM).
M. Miclea, B. Macavei 629
Cognition, Brain, Behavior 10 (2006) 625-635
Variables
The independent variable was the context, with two modalities framing
(the story included information about the presence of the spiritual entity and its
positive attributes) and non-framing (the story did not include any information
about the presence of a spiritual entity).
The dependent variables were: (1) trust in the future, (2) worry, and (3) sadness.
Procedure
Initial screening was meant to exclude persons with mental and
physical illnesses and persons younger than 18. Persons not meeting the
inclusion criteria but in need of psychological assistance were offered low-
cost therapy referrals. The administration of experimental tasks was
conducted by a licensed psychologist. Thirty-one subjects read the story
without framing and thirty-nine participants read the story with framing.
Immediately after having read the story, all participants answered the 5
questions corresponding to each situation (framing or non-framing). All
study materials were administered in group, in one session, without time
limit after obtaining the informed consent of the participants.
630 M. Miclea, B. Macavei
Cognition, Brain, Behavior 10 (2006) 625-635
RESULTS
Group statistics, t and p values for comparisons between framing and non-
framing groups are presented in Table 1. We found that both worry and sadness are
significantly lower for the framing group than for non-framing. We found also, that
faith in the future is significantly higher for the framing group as compared to the
non-framing one (all p’s < .05). Thus we can say, relying on these data, that the
experienced sadness and worry is reduced when a negative chain of events is
associated with the involvement of a spiritual entity and hope is increased.
Table 1. Group statistics, t and p values for comparisons between framing and non-framing
groups.
Framing/Non-framing t p
Trust in the future 2.53 .01
Worry 3.78 <.001
Sadness 2.26 .02
Group Statistics
Table 2. Group statistics, t and p values for comparisons between framing and non-framing
groups for the subjects for whom religion is medium and little important.
Framing/Non-framing t p
Trust in the future 0.80 .43
Worry 2.13 .054
Sadness 0.36 .72
Group Statistics
Table 3. Group statistics, t and p values for comparisons between framing and non-framing
groups for the subjects for whom religion is very important or important enough.
Framing/Non-framing t p
Trust in the future 2.42 .01
Worry 3.18 .002
Sadness 2.56 .01
Group Statistics
Table 4. Group statistics, t and p values for comparisons between subjects in the framing
group who recalled very few and subjects in the framing group who recalled very many
spiritual entity characteristics.
High/Low recalling t p
Trust in the future 0.30 .76
Worry 0.39 .69
Sadness 1.28 .21
Group Statistics
Considered all together our results show that a religious frame induces a
tacit meaning-making process that mediate the impact of negative events. People
feels less worry and sad and more trustful in future when a chain of negative events
are connected to the involvement of a merciful and omnipotent spiritual being than
it is absent in the meaning-making process.
Results from our first study suggest that the mere association of a chain of
negative events with the presence of a merciful and omnipotent spiritual being
produces less worries and sadness and increased hope for the future. However, it is
important to notice that the association between belief in the presence of a positive
spiritual entity on the one hand, and negative emotions and faith in the future on
the other hand is valid only for those subjects for whom religious attitudes play a
major part in their life. In other words, it is possible that, unless basic religious
beliefs are not central to one’s belief system they will not significantly impact
emotions. We also found that religious beliefs mediate the relationship between
negative events and emotional reactions rather via an implicit meaning-making
process than through an elaborated, explicit, inference-based mechanism. Next,
results suggest that in the absence of framing and in the context of severe negative
life events people who believe in God tend to develop fear of being punished by
634 M. Miclea, B. Macavei
Cognition, Brain, Behavior 10 (2006) 625-635
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This research was supported by CEEX-M1 Grant no. 124 (AnxNeuroCog) from the
Romanian Ministry of Education and Research.
REFERENCES