Relational reasons for nonbelief in the existence of gods: An important adjunct to intellectual nonbelief.

Bradley, David F.; Exline, Julie J.; Uzdavines, Alex

doi:10.1037/rel0000073

Cited by 14 publications

(21 citation statements)

References 43 publications

(56 reference statements)

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“…Furthermore, religious struggle, just like the other forms of religiosity, occurs around the world and across different religious groups. Empirical studies confirm the existence of religious problems and tensions among Christians (Bryant and Astin 2008;Büssing et al 2013Büssing et al , 2016Büssing et al , 2017aBüssing et al , b, 2018Carter 2019;Łowicki and Zajenkowski 2017;Szcześniak et al 2019;Zarzycka 2018;Zarzycka et al 2017), Muslims (Abu-Raiya et al 2008, 2015, 2018Ai et al 2003), Jews (Abu-Raiya et al 2016;Pirutinsky et al 2011;Pirutinsky and Rosmarin 2018;Rosmarin et al 2009Rosmarin et al , 2017, Hindus (Benson et al 2011;Exline et al 2017;Simha et al 2013;Tarakeshwar et al 2003), and atheists or agnostic samples (Bradley et al 2016;Sedlar et al 2018).…”

Section: Religious Strugglementioning

confidence: 87%

Religious Struggle and Life Satisfaction Among Adult Christians: Self-esteem as a Mediator

Szczęśniak

Timoszyk-Tomczak

2020

J Relig Health

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The religious dimension of life represents an important source of human strength, meaning, and coping for many people. However, the religious life is not always “smooth and easy” and can be associated with weak personal adjustment, poorer psychological well-being, and lower satisfaction. Yet, besides the direct relationship between these variables, some researchers postulate the existence of an indirect association that has not been fully explained by various psychosocial mediators. The aim of the present study was to verify whether self-esteem could be a potential mediator between religious strain and life satisfaction. The sample consisted of 607 adult Christians (49.6% women) aged between 18 and 79. We used the Religious Comfort and Strain Scale, the Satisfaction with Life Scale, and the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale. Consistent with our hypotheses, life satisfaction positively correlated with religious comfort and was negatively associated with fear/guilt, negative emotions toward God, and negative social interactions surrounding religion. The same pattern of results was shown in the case of self-esteem. Moreover, the outcomes obtained from bootstrap sampling (5000) with a 95% confidence interval indicated a significant role of self-esteem as a mediator in all of the relationships between: (1) religious comfort and life satisfaction; (2) fear/guilt and life satisfaction; (3) negative emotions toward God and life satisfaction; and (4) negative social interactions surrounding religion and life satisfaction.

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Section: Religious Strugglementioning

confidence: 87%

Religious Struggle and Life Satisfaction Among Adult Christians: Self-esteem as a Mediator

Szczęśniak

Timoszyk-Tomczak

2020

J Relig Health

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“…In our sample of non-believers personal Intellect was negatively related to God's perceived Intellect and God's Emotional stability. Although the Intellect factor from the Big Five model is somewhat different than the Openness to experience factor measured within the Five Factor Model [76], [96] they are comparable and the research on nonbelievers [12] has shown that Openness was related to seeing God as more distant, whilst Rouse [73] showed atheists depict Jesus as being lower on Emotional stability then believers did. This suggests that the more people deemed themselves to be creative, imaginative, reflective and analytical the less they tend to perceive God to be like themselves and tend to judge God to be more emotionally unstable and characterized as envious, emotional, and moody.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 85%

“…Although several studies used the Big five or the Five factor model (FFM) to assess the perceived personality of Jesus [26], [71], [90], God [17] or various other religious figures and concepts [81] of both believers and non-believers [12], [73] none of the researchers so far have examined that the measure conforms to the predicted Five factor model. Although we can presume that the measures would be applicable even to the concept of God, as it is the case when using a measure in a new language, in a new culture or on a new and previous unstudied demographic the presumption of the applicability of the scale should be tested before interpreting its relation between to other scales.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The studies so far, although providing valuable insights, are for the most part plagued by small samples and a lack of consistency in both terminology and the measures used for both self and God assessment. Although some of the authors [12], [70], [71] recognized the perks of using the existing personality measures in this manner, their use has been inconsistent and limited to the FFM leaving out dimensions such as morality [37], [47] and sexuality [67], [77], [86] that have shown to be related to religiosity. Most of these studies have also been correlational and have not been able to answer whether self/God overlap is the cause or the result of religious devotion.…”

Section: The Current Studymentioning

confidence: 99%

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How the Non-Religious View the Personality of God in Relation to Themselves

Lane¹

2019

Studia Humana

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In this study we examined the applicability of personality measures to assessing God representations, and we explored how the overlap between personality judgments of self and God relate to strength of (dis)belief and closeness to God among atheists and agnostics. Using sample of 1,088 atheists/agnostics, we applied Goldberg’s Big Five bipolar markers as a standardized measure of personality dimensions, along with measures of identity fusion with God, belief strength, and sociosexuality, as this trait has been shown to be relevant in predicting religiosity. Our study revealed that personality measures can be used for research on the personality of supernatural agents. We also found that personality self-assessments were related to the assessments of God personality. Agreeableness was positively related to the perception of emotional stability of God, while conscientiousness and surgency were negatively related to perceived intellect and surgency of god, respectively. Also, intellect of the participants was related negatively to perceptions of God’s emotional stability and intellect. Perceived distance between the assessment of one’s own personality and the personality of God predicted the strength of (dis)belief, thus opening new interpretations into possible sources of belief and disbelief. Finally, echoing previous studies, we found that conscientiousness of God had a negative effect on SOI-R score.

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“…Consistent with this logic, some atheists endorse a history of negative emotions toward god(s) as a reason for their nonbelief (Bradley et al 2017;Bradley et al 2018). Along similar lines, in his writings about beliefs in God, Barrett (2004) has distinguished between reflective beliefs that are formed slowly, deliberately, and consciously, and nonreflective beliefs that are produced automatically and may be less explicit and less conscious.…”

Section: Religious and Spiritual Strugglesmentioning

confidence: 78%

Spiritual Struggles among Atheists: Links to Psychological Distress and Well-Being

et al. 2018

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Religious and spiritual struggles (R/S struggles)-tension or conflicts regarding religious or spiritual matters-have been robustly linked to greater psychological distress and lower well-being. Most research in this area has relied on samples consisting predominantly of participants who believe in god(s). Limited research has examined R/S struggles among atheists, generally conflating them with agnostics and other nontheists. This study investigated the prevalence of R/S struggles among atheists and compared atheists to theists in two samples (3978 undergraduates, 1048 Internet workers).Results of a multilevel model showed that atheists experience less demonic, doubt, divine, moral, and overall R/S struggles than theists, but similar levels of interpersonal and ultimate meaning struggles. Correlation and regression analyses among atheists demonstrated links between moral, ultimate meaning, and overall R/S struggles and greater distress (depression and anxiety symptoms) as well as lower well-being (life satisfaction and meaning in life). Even after controlling neuroticism, ultimate meaning struggles continued to predict lower well-being and higher distress across samples; moral struggles also predicted distress independently. This study demonstrates the relevance of R/S struggles to atheists and reinforces the applicability of previous results to atheist samples, but also highlights substantial differences between atheists and theists in certain R/S struggles.

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Relational reasons for nonbelief in the existence of gods: An important adjunct to intellectual nonbelief.

Cited by 14 publications

References 43 publications

Religious Struggle and Life Satisfaction Among Adult Christians: Self-esteem as a Mediator

Religious Struggle and Life Satisfaction Among Adult Christians: Self-esteem as a Mediator

How the Non-Religious View the Personality of God in Relation to Themselves

Spiritual Struggles among Atheists: Links to Psychological Distress and Well-Being

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