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Keeping up with the rapidly growing research base, the leading graduate-level psychology of religion text is now in a fully updated fifth edition. It takes a balanced, empirically driven approach to understanding the role of religion in individual functioning and social behavior. Integrating research on numerous different faith traditions, the book addresses the quest for meaning; links between religion and biology; religious thought, belief, and behavior across the lifespan; experiential dimensions of religion and spirituality; the social psychology of religious organizations; and connections to coping, adjustment, and mental disorder. Chapter-opening quotations and topical research boxes enhance the readability of this highly instructive text. New to This Edition *New topics: cognitive science of religion; religion and violence; and groups that advocate terrorist tactics. *The latest empirical findings, including hundreds of new references. *Expanded discussion of atheism and varieties of nonbelief. *More research on religions outside the Judeo-Christian tradition, particularly Islam. *State-of-the-art research methods, including techniques for assessing neurological states.
The third edition of this successful book, which applies the science of psychology to problems of religion. Dr Thouless explores such questions as: why do people believe? Why are their beliefs often held with irrational strength? How are changes in belief systems related to mental health? What are reasonable attitudes towards alternative belief systems? This edition includes samples of the experimental and statistical studies of religious problems, including the author's own study of the strength of religious beliefs. This edition also pays more attention to the problems of non-Christian religious systems, with special consideration given to the problems of mutual toleration. Finally Dr Thouless considers whether it is reasonable for modern man to adhere to any religious belief system. This is an excellent textbook for students of the social sciences, particularly psychology and theology, and will also interest the general reader who has an intellectual curiosity about religion.
This concise and intelligent introduction draws from a wide variety of cultures and faiths to consider all the major themes of the psychology of religion, from the effect of religious beliefs on emotional well being to the psychological effects of prayer.
This book examines the role of religious and spiritual experiences in people’s understanding of their environment. The contributors consider how understandings and experiences of religious and place connections are motivated by the need to seek and maintain contact with perceptual objects, so as to form meaningful relationship experiences. The volume is one of the first scholarly attempts to discuss the psychological links between place and religious experiences.The chapters within provide insights for understanding how people’s experiences with geographical places and the sacred serve as agencies for meaning-making, pro-social behaviour, and psychological adjustment in everyday life.
An unbiased, comprehensive introduction to the psychology of religion. This book integrates clinical, theoretical, and empirical literature, as well as biographical information of the lives of significant psychologists and their works. It contains new research on meditation, the correlational study of religion, religion and mental health, object relations theory, pluralism and social constructionism.
Neuroscience, Psychology, and Religion is the second title published in the new Templeton Science and Religion Series. In this volume, Malcolm Jeeves and Warren S. Brown provide an overview of the relationship between neuroscience, psychology, and religion that is academically sophisticated, yet accessible to the general reader. The authors introduce key terms; thoroughly chart the histories of both neuroscience and psychology, with a particular focus on how these disciplines have interfaced religion through the ages; and explore contemporary approaches to both fields, reviewing how current science/religion controversies are playing out today. Throughout, they cover issues like consciousness, morality, concepts of the soul, and theories of mind. Their examination of topics like brain imaging research, evolutionary psychology, and primate studies show how recent advances in these areas can blend harmoniously with religious belief, since they offer much to our understanding of humanity's place in the world. Jeeves and Brown conclude their comprehensive and inclusive survey by providing an interdisciplinary model for shaping the ongoing dialogue. Sure to be of interest to both academics and curious intellectuals, Neuroscience, Psychology, and Religion addresses important age-old questions and demonstrates how modern scientific techniques can provide a much more nuanced range of potential answers to those questions.
Over a century ago, psychologists who were fascinated with religion began to study and write about it. Theologians and religious practitioners have responded to this literature, producing a fascinating dialogue that deals with our fundamental und- standings about the human person and our place in the world. This book provides an introduction to the important conversations that have developed out of these interchanges. The dialogue between psychology and religion is difficult to study for a number of reasons. First, it requires knowledge of both psychology and religion. People with a background in psychology often lack a solid understanding of the religious traditions they wish to study, and theologians may not be up to date on the latest developments in psychology. Second, it requires conceptual tools to organize the material and understand the basic problems involved in any attempt to connect the science of psychology with religion. These concepts can be found in many places, for instance in the writings of philosophers of science, but they are complex and often hard to follow for those without a proper theological and philosophical ba- ground. Finally, authors who write on the topic come to the study of psychology and religion from a variety of academic and personal backgrounds. This makes for wonderful diversity in conversations, but it makes understanding and mastery of the material quite difficult.
Is religion all in our heads? Whether you believe that to be true or whether you believe that religion has a corresponding external reality (i.e., God), religion at least begins with our heads, namely the cognitive architecture that predisposes human beings to belief in the sacred supernatural. Cognitive Psychology of Religion explores how research in neuroscience, perception, cognition, child development, social cognition, and cognitive anthropology provides insight into the development of the cognitive faculties of belief that facilitate the transmission of religion. Eames has organized the text into seven chapters that follow a clear and straightforward progression from the different theories of the origin of religion into an exploration on how our minds perceive the environment, form truths, spread beliefs, and take part in various rituals and experiences. Cognitive Psychology of Religion is a concise introduction to the cognitive science of religion and serves as an excellent primary or supplemental text for traditional psychology of religion courses.
In the past four decades or so, the so-called psychology of religion – after having been deemed extinct, impossible or unlikely – has risen to prominence again: the number of publications is rapidly growing, an impressive secondary literature (handbooks, introductions, etc.) is available already, infrastructure has been developed (a number of new journals devoted to the subject have been founded, organizations have been established, increasingly funding is going to the area), attracting many new researchers. Organizations like the American Psychological Association are now publishing in the field of psychology of religion (and its Div. 36 [“psych of rel”] with almost 3,000 members is already midsized among the APA-divisions). This book documents this re-emergence and development.