This research project is situated within the field of psychology of religion. “Why should we study religion psychologically?” Spilka and colleagues (2003) begin their book on the psychology of religion with this question. It is worth studying religion from the perspective of psychology because the majority of the people of the world take religion seriously, and it influences their motivation, cognition, behaviour and wellbeing. Therefore, the psychology of religion uses the theoretical framework and methods of general psychology to study the influence of spiritual and religious phenomena on people. (Emmons & Paloutzian, 2003; Gorsuch, 1988; Hill & Gibson, 2008; Jonte-Pace & Parsons, 2001; Spilka, Hood, Hunsberger & Gorsuch, 2003, pp.1-19; Wulff, 1997, pp.1-19).
There are basically three major strands in studies that relate psychology and religion: (a) Religious Psychology discusses psychological findings within the discourse of religion – Christianity; pastoral psychology as an offshoot of this approach draws insight from psychology for use in ‘helping ministry’, while also wooing the secular practitioners to pay attention to the role of the spiritual (Hood et al, 1996, p.407); (b) Psychology and Religion attempts to facilitate a dialogue between the two fields while maintaining their independent discourses; and, (c) Psychology of Religion.
Pioneers in American psychology, like William James (1902/1977) and James Pratt (1920), studied religious experience and consciousness using descriptive methods in the analysis of autobiographical material. Edward S. Ames’s (1910) and Leuba (1912/1969) used anthropological data in their attempt to understand the origin and history of religion and social values. Two features need to be noted in the origins of psychology: qualitative methods were being used, and religion was a major subject matter. Starbuck (1899) was the first to use questionnaires or ‘circulars’, as they were called then, for research in psychology, and that too in the study of religious conversion. In the decades that followed, psychology adopted a positivist-empiricist approach, and also sidelined religion from its concerns. However, in the last forty years there has been a revival of the psychological studies on religion, and in an attempt to establish scientific credibility and thus to contribute to mainstream psychology, the psychology of religion also embraced a measurement approach. For instance, more than a decade ago, Hill and Hood (1999) collected and reviewed no less than 126 “measures of religiosity” which were already in use then within the psychology of religion. The measurement paradigm, particularly the use of questionnaires, according to Gorsuch (1984), could not only be a boon for the psychology of religion, but also a bane: “It is possible that psychologists studying religion will study the measurement of religion rather than religion itself. … Although the questionnaire approach is successful, it is still a questionnaire approach. Questionnaires may not be adequate to tap more basic motivational levels” (p.235).
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