Differentiating personified, supernatural, and abstract views of God across three cognitive domains.

Abstract

Social scientists have greatly advanced our understanding of how people think and feel about God as a person-like, supernatural being. However, there has been insufficient research and theory investigating abstract God representations. Furthermore, previous research has assessed beliefs about God with descriptors generated by the researchers. We collected qualitative data from 1,030 participants in the U.S. who provided free-response descriptions of how they visualize God. Using a constructivist grounded theory approach, we developed a coding scheme that fit well with an integrative, two-dimensional, conceptual framework of God-views. We found evidence that people draw from different cognitive domains (folk-physics, -biology, and -psychology; Dimension 1) to visualize God as personified (20.8%), supernatural (34.0%), or abstract (21.6%; Dimension 2). Some participants provided both supernatural and abstract (multiple God-view) descriptions (16.8%); others had no view of God (6.9%). The God-view groups differed significantly on an array of quantitative measures of God representations and religiosity. This research integrates previous literature and provides additional understanding of the underlying cognitive structure of God-views in general, and highlights the need for more research of abstract God-views in particular.

Unique Cognitive and Emotional Profiles of Interpersonal Gratitude and Spiritual Gratitude

“…Our findings are therefore consistent with the hypothesis that religiosity can increase experiences of gratitude by encouraging belief in a benevolent agent (God) who is responsible for a wide variety of good experiences in one's life, even beyond those experiences that are under the control of human agents (Rosmarin et al, 2011). However, we also document that people report feeling grateful to spiritual benefactors that may not be personified, benevolent, or agentic, such as when blessings are attributed to more mystical and impersonal deities such as fate or the universe (Johnson et al, 2022). In these situations, the pattern of emotional responses diverges from that experienced in response to gifts from a human benefactor or personal God.…”

Religiosity, spirituality, and mental health in eight countries.

“…That stated, there is an argument for the utility of single-item measures in psychological science (Allen et al, 2022). There is also ample support for single-item scales within the study of religiosity in individual research studies (e.g., Johnson et al, 2023; Kelly & Eddie, 2020; Speed & Lamont, 2023; Yamada et al, 2020) and in large surveys (e.g., Kosmin et al, 2001; Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, 2008; T. W. Smith et al, 2018; Statistics Canada, 2019).…”

Varieties of gratitude: Identifying patterns of emotional responses to positive experiences attributed to God, karma, and human benefactors.

“…In contrast, many people believe in a higher power that can be described as impersonal, abstract, distant, or mystically entwined with the cosmos or natural world (e.g., the universe or ultimate reality; Johnson et al, 2023). A higher power may be perceived as lacking the mental capacities, agency, and benevolent intentions of a human benefactor or personified God.…”