When and why does belief in a controlling God strengthen goal commitment?

Landau, Mark J.; Khenfer, Jamel; Keefer, Lucas A.; Swanson, Trevor James; Kay, Aaron C.

doi:10.1016/j.jesp.2017.11.012

Cited by 27 publications

(20 citation statements)

References 50 publications

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“…Indeed, for most religious believers, God acts as a potent member of one's support network who remains available at all hours for insight and consultation (Pollner 1989;Sharp 2010). By petitioning God for help with overcoming barriers to attainment, believers can augment their sense of personal agency and maintain feelings of resolve and hope needed for persistent goal striving (Bandura 2003;Khenfer et al 2017;Krause 2005;Landau et al 2018). This could be likened to a vicarious control strategy, which involves aligning oneself with powerful others to share in their potency and control (Rothbaum, Weisz, and Snyder 1982: 20).…”

Section: Private Religiousnessmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Aspiration Strain and Mental Health: The Education‐Contingent Role of Religion

DeAngelis

Ellison

2018

Scientific Study of Religion

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This study examines whether dimensions of religious involvement (i.e., perceived divine control, private religious practices, and religious social integration) buffer associations between aspiration strain and mental health outcomes (i.e., psychological distress, loneliness, and optimism). We also test three‐way interactions to determine whether the stress‐buffering effects of religious involvement are amplified among undereducated persons. We test our hypotheses with cross‐sectional survey data from Vanderbilt University's Nashville Stress and Health Study (2011–2014), a probability sample of non‐Hispanic white and black adults from Davidson County, Tennessee (n = 1,252). Results from multivariate regression models confirmed: (1) aspiration strain was positively associated with psychological distress and loneliness, and negatively associated with optimism; and (2) religious involvement attenuated these associations, but only for respondents with less than or equal to a high school education. We discuss the implications and limitations of our findings and outline avenues for future research.

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Section: Private Religiousnessmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…; Krause ; Landau et al. ). This could be likened to a vicarious control strategy , which involves aligning oneself with powerful others to share in their potency and control (Rothbaum, Weisz, and Snyder : 20).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Aspiration Strain and Mental Health: The Education‐Contingent Role of Religion

DeAngelis

Ellison

2018

Scientific Study of Religion

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confidence: 74%

“…Individuals recruited by ToLuna respond to surveys in exchange for monetary and other nonmonetary rewards provided by ToLuna. Participants provided by ToLuna have, for example, been employed in previous research on reactions to unfair behaviour in the workplace(Bobocel, 2013), employee strain(Jang, Shen, Allen, & Zhang, 2018), or the relationship between goal commitment and religiosity(Landau, Khenfer, Keefer, Swanson, & Kay, 2018).2 The two photographs were matched and pretested with 38 participants recruited from Amazon Mechanical Turk for perceived attractiveness, emotional expression, and age, all ps > .20. 3 In all three studies, participants' response time for different items was recorded.…”

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confidence: 99%

Gender, leadership, and the display of empathic anger

Keck

2019

J Occupat & Organ Psyc

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Three experimental studies with different participant pools examined the effects of displays of empathic anger – anger that is caused by witnessing or learning of harm done to another person – on perceptions of men and women in leadership positions. In contrast to prior work, which focused on expressions of anger regarding personal failure and found double standards that favour men, the results in this study show that displays of empathic anger were significantly more beneficial for female leaders. In particular, female leaders who expressed anger about a harm done to a subordinate were perceived as possessing more agentic and communal characteristics, and as being more effective in their position, than their male counterparts. Moreover, the results showed that this effect was driven by observers’ tendency to attribute empathic anger expressed by female compared with male leaders more strongly to internal reasons like the leader's personality. Consistent with these findings, the different perceptions of male and female leaders were no longer present when attributions for the displays of empathic anger were clearly internal. Practitioner points To be effective leaders, female managers need to show qualities like determination and confidence, but unlike male leaders, they often find it difficult to do so without simultaneously been judged as lacking important attributes like warmth and kindness. The results in this study suggest that female leaders can overcome this problem by expressing anger about a harm done to others, which causes observes to judge them even more positively than male leaders who engage in the same behaviour. Overall, whereas female leaders should generally avoid expressing anger about a personal harm for which they are judged very negatively, they should not be reluctant to display anger about harm done to other members of organization when they have the opportunity to do so.

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“…And believing that God is in control and that God is "my copilot" has been shown to have positive psychological outcomes in several studies (Ellison and Burdette 2012;Ellison, Burdette, and Hill 2009;Furnham 1982;Jackson and Coursey 1988). Landau et al (2018) found that the effects of divine control are predicated on how the individual view God; specifically, they find that only a reliable and predicable God is associated with better mental health. Based on these contrasting studies, we hypothesize both of the following: H3a: Belief in divine control is associated with higher level of sense of personal control.…”

Section: Belief In Divine Controlmentioning

confidence: 99%

Faith and Agency: The Relationships Between Sense of Control, Socioeconomic Status, and Beliefs About God

Liu

Froese

2020

Scientific Study of Religion

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An individual's sense of control varies with religiosity, but the direction of this relationship can change based on one's social status and one's image of God. Using data from the Baylor Religion Survey Wave V, our current study investigates how secure attachment to God, belief in a judgmental God, and belief in divine control are associated with sense of control. Our findings indicate that the type of religious belief explains when religion is positively or negatively related to the believers' sense of control. And secure attachment to God and belief in divine control will compensate for social and economic deprivation. Still, belief in a judgmental God is negatively related to agency for believers across the stratification hierarchy. This indicates that a traditional fire-and-brimstone God is related to a lower sense of control, while more contemporary and individualized beliefs about God are connected to greater agency, especially for believers in need.

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When and why does belief in a controlling God strengthen goal commitment?

Cited by 27 publications

References 50 publications

Aspiration Strain and Mental Health: The Education‐Contingent Role of Religion

Aspiration Strain and Mental Health: The Education‐Contingent Role of Religion

Gender, leadership, and the display of empathic anger

Faith and Agency: The Relationships Between Sense of Control, Socioeconomic Status, and Beliefs About God

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