The Effect of Religion on the Human Mind: Analyses of Language Use and Personality

Abstract

Previous research has shown that being religious is beneficial in various ways. Though religion's benefits are well-studied, few investigations have provided quantitative and explorative perspectives on its effects. Most studies concern religion's influence on specific psychological aspects of the human mind. This study investigated whether people's language use reflects the effects of religious training. We analyzed writing samples from 12 new believers in the Catholic Church via a language analysis program and conducted relevant psychological tests. The results showed language patterns changed significantly with religious training, even though these changes did not show any correlations with the psychological scales. These results indicate that religiosity can be reflected in certain language behaviors. Moreover, the results suggest language usage can be a reliable and sensitive index for measuring religiosity. Key words: religiosity, language uses, KLIWC, KoreanThe positive effects of religiosity have been well characterized by previous studies. Typical findings have included a positive association between religiosity and subjective well-being (Chamberlain & Zika, 1988;Delbridge, Headey, & Wearing, 1994;Willits & Crider, 1988), healthy lifestyles (Cochran, 1992;Wallace Jr & Forman, 1998), and improvements in mental health (Regnerus & Smith, 2005;Smith & Faris, 2005).Researchers have proposed several possible mechanisms whereby religion might bring about these beneficial effects. Fredrickson (2002) argued that religion induces people to attribute greater value to ordinary life events and, in so doing, engenders positive emotions, such as gratitude, hope, joy, and serenity. This view emphasized the resulting positive emotions' roles in subjective well-being. On the other hand, Ardelt (2003) argued that religion provides a sense of meaning for life, on a comprehensive level, and the sense of having a purposeful life is more important than emotional stability is. Finally, Spilka and McIntosh (1997) argued that religion enables people to acquire a sense of ultimate control over life, obtainable through prayer or gratitude. Moreover, according to Stromberg (1990), a created sense of self-transformation through the conversion experience brings about such changes.