Lecture 6: Religion Spirituality and Well-Being Flashcards
What is Religion in the traditional distinction?
- A fixed system of ideas or ideological commitments
- Instituitionalized, formal, outward, doctrinal, authoritarian, controlling, inhibiting our free expression
What is Spirituality (traditional distinction)?
- A personal, subjective side of religious experience
- individual, subjective, emotional, less formal, inward, unsystematic, freeing expression
What are the problems with this traditional distinction?
- It’s the implicit idea that religion is bad and spirituality is good
- ignores spiritual expression unfold in a social context
- religion is also interested in subjective experiences
- Ignores that both involve transcendence
- both involve the need to relate to something greater than oneself (broader)
- self-transcendence (vertical & horizontal)
This aspect doesn’t guide us on how to conceptualize & operationalize religion & spirituality
What is religiosity?
It captures people’s religious beliefs, their religious ideologies and practices
What was Allport’s view on religiosity?
Focused on religiosity as being motivational (why are people religious)
Extrinsic (means to an end) – being religious allows them to obtain things they believe is important, to get a sense of community
Intrinsic – when you’re religious for the sake of being religious, their religiosity is a core part of self-concept, it’s who they are
Why do people argue against Allport’s view?
REVIEW LECTURE
What were Hackney & Sanders view on religiosity?
Identified 3 dimensions:
Institutional religiosity – Social & behavior aspects - what do people do, (go to church etc.)
Ideological religiosity – religious belief - what people believe (about the afterlife, what we’re suppose to be doing)
Personal devotion – how someone has internalized it, how important is religious to that person
Are the 3 dimensions identified by Hackney & Sanders independent of each other?
No they are all related
What was Paragament’s view of Spirituality?
Journey to discover
Process of discovery, what people hold on too and transform what they hold on too
Spiriuality can unfold in an informal way as well (don’t need instituitions)
What is MacDonald’s Model of Spirituality Expression?
Cognitive orientation towards spirituality –
Experiential/phenomenal dimension – what spirituality feels like for
individuals and the experiences you have
Existential well-being – reflects how much your spiritual journey allows u to feel that u have a purpose in life, how much you’re able to derive meaning
Paranormal beliefs – captures what people believe in (do u believe in spirits, ghosts, spiritual world, teleportation)
Religiousness - how much your journey to discover the sacred was connected to your..
What was the correlation between religiosity of the globe and life satisfaction of the globe?
Negative
What was the correlation between religiosity across nations and their life satisfaction?
Weak Negative Correlations
What is the empirical evidence on across nations? (Diener)
- Overall life satisfaction is negatively correlated with national religiosity
- The more important religion was, the less satisfied the nation was
- No correlation between how religious a nation was and how much attendance
More religious nation = more Negative affect
What is the empirical evidence on across individuals?
life satisfaction (weaker negative relations)
- More religious individual = less life satisfaction
Positive Affect (weaker pos relations)
- More religious individual = more PA
Negative feelings (weaker pos relations)
- More religious individual = more NA
What key thing influences life satisfaction and religiosity and matters for SWB?
Societal circumstances - Person-environment fit
How is the life satisfaction and PA of individuals in highly religious nations?
when you are religious in a high religious nation = higher life satisfaction = higher PA = lowe NA
similar LS
How is the life satisfaction and PA of individuals in lower religious nations?
Religious individuals in less religious nations = slgihtly greater PA and lower NA
How is the SWB of individuals living in a society with difficult circumstances?
Lower SWB for less religious individuals
For Religious individuals = Higher LS = Higher PA = Lower NA
How is the SWB of individuals living in a society with good circumstances?
Higher SWB for less religious individuals
For religious individuals = lower LS = slightly higher PA and NA
Does personal circumstances also contibute to SWB? How?
Yes
Personal circumstances contribute to your well being (LS) more than religiosity
But religiosity contributes to well-being more than your age and well-being
LS - religiosity matters less than gender, personal circumstances but more than age
PA - religiosity mattered less than personal circumstances, but more than age and gender
NA - religiosity mattered less than personal circumstances, age and gender
Is there a difference between life satisfaction and different religions?
Difference is very small
What was the correlation between spirituality and LS at an individual level?
Weak Negative correlation
What is the LS in nations that are high in supporting socialized religion practices?
Higher LS and Happiness in individuals who are high in religious practices than those who are not
What is the LS in nations that don’t support socialized religion practices?
Higher LS and Happiness individuals who didn’t engage in spiritual practices than those who did
