Talk:Psychology of religion

message: I just reverted an anonymous user who changed "Roman Catholic" to "Catholic."  Please see the section on "Terminology" in Roman Catholic Church.  The full form is more appropriate in an encyclopedic context.--Craigkbryant 14:19, 25 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Use of "Roman Catholic" instead of "Catholic" 

message: As Wikipedia, unlike the American Psychological Association, does not have a fixed standard method of referencing, it can be difficult to put in references in a format that others will like, and difficult to put in references in a way that will ensure consistency of references, even within the same article. 195.93.21.72 20:24, 18 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: It seems to make sense, however, for articles on psychological subjects to follow APA guidelines for references. When a research psychologist looks at an article like this and sees references in another format, the natural conclusion is that these were added by those outside the field of psychology, which doesn't engender confidence in the quality of the article, especially in light of the observations above that the article is "overly focused on (sometimes ideological) grand theories, rather than empirics." I don't see any problem with providing consistency; it will flow naturally from following APA guidelines. As to the question of whether people will "like" an APA format for references in an encyclopedic article about a psychological topic, I think most would agree that academic standards are more important than personal preferences, whether it is in regard to a standard format in a particular field or a standard operating procedure in an empirical science (as opposed to POV not supported by empirical research). -DoctorW 17:43, 9 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Referencing guide 

message: As some enthusiasts for the Psychology of Religion might know, Division 36 of the American Psychological Association recently tried (unsuccessfully, as the vote was not quite great enough) to change its name to "Psychology of Religion and Spirituality". Perhaps this article could do more with reference to the literature on the discussion about whether the term "religion" means something different to "spirituality". As it stands currently, this debate is only referred to in passing in a rather fleeting reference to an article from "American Psychologist" for 2003. I am aware that Wikipedia has a separate article Spirituality, but I would have thought that, given the considerations psychologists are now giving to questions relating to whether we can distinguish these concepts, it was important to refer in more depth to this debate here. A. Carl 21:43, 8 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Spirituality and Religion

message: It seems that some contributors are more interested in their pet theories than accurately representing what Psychology of Religion is. Philosophers' views of religion should go to other pages (and be balanced). Feuerbach obviously has no place on this page. The reference to Marx was simply not serious, unless it was from someone who wanted to slip him in to support an attack on religion that is about as POV as anything I've seen on Wikipedia. I almost deleted Otto also, but the insight regarding "the religious as a non-reducible, original category" is a major idea that psychologists of religion have to deal with. Personally, I would find it much more appropriate to cite the psychologist who has done the most with this issue, not Otto, but I don't know who that person would be. I am the one who was harsh on Fowler also, because he falls somewhat short on standard methodological criteria for scientific psychology, even though (as is pointed out above) he provides a useful heuristic that has been widely referenced by academics. Another problem was with the old organizational scheme, grouping "psychoanalytical" and "other," implying too much importance be assigned to the former, and William James being shunted to the large "other" category! I am a psychologist, and although psychology of religion is not my specialty, I am familiar enough with it to know that James deserves a place of prominence in the article (rather than Freud), and I certainly know what psychology of religion is not. It is not a forum for either attacking or promoting religion. Those uncomfortable with the ideological bias (as mentioned above) should have been bolder in editing. I've noticed that on Wikipedia it is often the case that those who are less knowledgeable about a subject are bolder editors than those who are more knowledgeable about that subject. I hope those who work in this area will continue to make valuable contributions and to delete things that don't really belong in a high-quality article about a psychological topic. -DoctorW 03:54, 18 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  This is a psychology article 

message: What's up with the second paragraph of the "Psychometric approaches" section?  I quote, "Glock and Stark's famous typology described five dimensions of religion – the doctrinal, the intellectual, the ethical-consequential, the ritual, and the intellectual."
Intellectual is listed twice.
Thank you  - that is probably my typing slip. I should have included "experiential" and have now corrected it  - it is good to know that eagle-eyed proof-readers read Wikipedia! ACEO 15:28, 16 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Psychometric approaches...

message: Research shows that people get a great deal of their information visually, and we all know how much advertisers spent on the visual aspect of their ads/adverts. When a reader looks at an encyclopedia article, there is an implication that those selected to be pictured are the more important to the topic. In this article, it's not inappropriate for James to be selected, but I wonder whether it sends the right message to have pictures of only James and Freud. The availability of images should not override proportionality, so I've put in an image that has a picture of Freud and Jung, and both men are smaller in this picture than James is in his picture. I think this is more appropriate, at least until we get more pictures. One time I saw an introductory psychology textbook in which my advisor Urie Bronfenbrenner had a picture five times the size of the pictures of Freud and Skinner. While there may be people out there who think that this gives Freud and Skinner the consideration they are due, it seemed out of proportion to me for an introductory textbook. -DoctorW 18:30, 12 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Pictures

message: What about mentioning Friedrich Daniel Ernst Schleiermacher? He even preceedes James (who is credited a the "founder" here. He certainly wote the first big standard text). Azate 05:05, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Schleiermacher 

message: I would like to comment on the section under Alfred Adler. 
"According to Adler, only when science begins to capture the same religious fervour, and promotes the welfare of all segments of society, will the two be more equal in peoples' eyes."
I don't see how science could capture the same fervor as religion. Religion generally claims to have the answer to everything, whereas science does not. I don't see how religion and science are comparable except to say that the two points of view seem to oppose each other. 
Science seeks to explain phenomena through observation and experimentation. Religion claims to already have the answer... at least until science proves the truth. 
I guess, now that I have thought about it some, my post is a bit irrelevant. If that is what Adler said, that's what he said. 
I guess I just disagree.
Eyknough 19:44, 29 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Alfred Adler said what? 

message: In the encyclopaedia of religion which is edited by Mircea Eliade, Homans has published an article on the "Psychology and Religion Movement" which he is careful to distinguish from "religious psychology" or "the psychology of religion". In this article, he refers to the work of theologians such as Paul Tillich.Do we need a new article on this, echoing Homans' message, keeping it separate from this article? ACEOREVIVED (talk) 20:40, 21 August 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Psychology and Religion Movement - is a new article needed?

message: I would like to see an article on Hjalmar Sunden in the English Wikipedia (there is not an article in the English Wikipedia, but there is in the Swedish Wikipedia). Sunden is a big name in the psychology of religion, and the Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion
devoted a special issue to his work. His work has influenced scholars such as Holm and Belzen, two Finnish psychologists. Any one willing to be bold and start this article? 92.4.52.176 (talk) 21:17, 26 August 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Article on Sunden needed

message: There ARE references in here, several actually, they're just not cited the way most Wiki pages are. (Though they look like they were based upon a textbook. I have my suspicions). They need to be numbered and placed at the bottom, but I don't know how to do this. Colonel Marksman (talk) 08:50, 16 November 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: References

message: There is the expression siege mentality which at times appears in essays on psychology of religion, and which should perhaps be disserted within the content of the article. ADM (talk) 05:24, 31 January 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Siege mentality

message: The section on Fowler needs updating.It does not mention the Faith Development Scale, nor how this has been subject to factor analysis. There are references to this in the "International Journal for the Psychology of Religion", so if I have a chance to find the correct references, I may do some updating. ACEOREVIVED (talk) 22:23, 13 March 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Section on Fowler needs updating

message: The article indicated that he adopted a sort of agnosticism with respect to the existence of God. I don't have the exact quote with me, but when asked if he believed he said something in the fashion of: "I don't believe, I know." I think he believed that rational arguments for the existence of God were inadequate though he himself still believed. Then again it is quite possible that his views changed throughout his life. Is there a degree of scholarly consensus on whether Jung was agnostic? Thanks!
152.15.104.249 (talk) 17:21, 24 March 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Carl Jung 

message: He was a very important figure in critical analysis of religious psychology.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.215.149.116 (talk) 21:58, 19 January 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Agreed that Neitzsche was a critical analyst of religion but I think the article is only intended to cover psychologist's view on religion, hence only Psychologist or professionals in relative fields are mentioned. Philosophy of Religion would be a better place for Nietzsche views or to reference him.Theo10011 (talk) 16:19, 11 April 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Why is Nietzsche not mentioned here? 

message: Of the 4 "modern" thinkers listed, two of them (Clift and Reiss) have very little notability in the psychology literature. Searches generate only about 4 religion-related publications for Reiss (from "au=reiss steven and ab=(religion or religious or spiritual or spirituality or faith or god)") and about 5 total records for Clift, of which only 1 or 2 clearly deal with religion. One option is to eliminate these individuals entirely. Another might be to mention them briefly in an "Other thinkers" section, with only their name in text, and all further info relegated to an informational footnote. But in that case we'd seem to be setting the bar so low that virtually everyone who's ever published a book or an article relevant to psychology of religion that contained a theoretical component would be eligible for inclusion in the page. Thus I see few alternatives to simply deleting them. Any disagreement? They can be replaced with paragraphs on individuals such as Ken Pargament, Ralph Hood, and others who are widely recognized and cited in the contemporary literature. Health Researcher (talk) 21:34, 2 June 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Deleting Non-notable modern thinkers 

message: The sections in the article about secularization theory deal primarily or possibly entirely with sociology. Perhaps they have a place in the article but it should probably be scaled back and condensed to make it clearer that this is sociological context, rather than psychology per se. For example even Wade Clark Roof, though widely known among psychologists of religion, is a sociologist -- only 4 publications of his are listed in the PsycInfo database, whereas 75+ are listed in Sociological Abstracts. Any disagreements with the idea that this secularization stuff should be reworked (though retained in some way, probably reduced)? -- Health Researcher (talk) 23:01, 17 June 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Page fails to distinguish psychology from sociology 

message: Here is text copied from talk at Template talk:Psychology sidebar. Perhaps some of it can be useful for further building up this page.
:... Psychology of Religion ... [has] (16,300 hits in Google Scholar). <snip> 
:*Psychology of Religion has its own APA division (Div 36)
:*Other professional associations exist, such as the International Association for the Psychology of Religion, the American Association of Pastoral Psychologists, and the Christian Association for Psychological Studies (not to mention interdisciplinary social science organizations, such as the Society for the Scientific Study of Religion).
:*APA will soon be publishing an official 2-volume APA Handbook on the topic (editor-in-chief: Ken Pargament) which has been conceptualized to include more than 75 chapters (41 in v1, 37 in v2 according to a preliminary chapter list sent to me as an invited chapter author). Original timeline (perhaps still valid) had due-date of Aug 2011 for final versions of chapters.
:*APA publishes a journal on the topic, Psychology of Religion and Spirituality (ISSN 1941-1022), now in its 3rd volume.
:*There are several other relevant journals that have been publishing for a decade or often much longer, including International Journal for the Psychology of Religion, Archive for the Psychology of Religion (ISSN 0084-6724), Pastoral Psychology (0031-2789), Journal of Psychology & Theology (ISSN 0091-6471), Journal of Psychology & Christianity (0733-4273), and (psych+other social sci:) Mental Health, Religion & Culture, Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, Review of Religious Research (ISSN 0034-673X)
:*Psychology of Religion was of considerable interest to founders of modern psychology such as William James and G. Stanley Hall. Even Sigmund Freud, though several of his ideas have not stood the test of time, was quite interested in religion, and published multiple books on psychology of religion
:*At variance with the overall pattern of strength, comparatively few graduate programs specialize in competencies related to Psychology of Religion, although such programs exist, and include Loyola University of Maryland, Pastoral Counseling. For a US national overview see HERE
(copied from DIFF HERE) -- Health Researcher (talk) 18:23, 4 March 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Text/info/links potentially useful for building up this page 

message: There exists a body of psychological literature which accounts for religious behavior in terms of Attachment Theory. For an introduction to the discussion, read the following:
Kirkpatrick, L. A. (1992). An attachment-theory approach to the psychology of religion. International Journal for the Psychology of Religion 2(1), 3-28. doi:10.1207/s15327582ijpr0201_2  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.231.211.234 (talk) 06:52, 3 May 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Attachment Theory 

message: Fear of hell seems like it would be pretty common and prevalent. Have there been any studies on that? It's child abuse to indoctrinate children in such a way. It harms so many, especially those who are outside of the "norm." For instance, LGBT folks are often traumatized. Anyone growing up in a religious family or environment, including just the surroundings where one lives, is often traumatized, actually.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.70.193.208 (talk) 00:45, 30 July 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Fear of Hell 

message: When this article mentions Carl Jung's theory of the archetypes of the collective unconscious, it goes on to say "the irruption (sic.) of these images from the unconscious". I think this is a spelling  - surely "irruption" should be spelt "eruption". Vorbee (talk) 15:20, 14 October 2017 (UTC)
replies: text: I unfortunately don't have access to the source (Nature of the Psyche).  However irruption is also possible:  (Webster 1913).  —PaleoNeonate – 16:39, 14 October 2017 (UTC)
thread_title: Spelling of eruption

message: When talking about Carl Gustav Jung, this article says "The irruption (sic.) of these images from the unconscious mind". Should this not read "eruption"? Vorbee (talk) 20:55, 25 December 2017 (UTC)
thread_title: Irruption or eruption

message: In light of https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f-wWBGo6a2w&list=PL22J3VaeABQD_IZs7y60I3lUrrFTzkpat and Maps of Meaning, I think this is a good question. The author is a tenured Professor of Clinical Psychology at University of Toronto. 192.34.225.130 (talk) 00:16, 26 April 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Where is Jordan Peterson? 

message: In the subsection Other Early Theorists, there is an entry for Gordon Allport but not Daniel Batson. Yet the second half of the Allport entry is about Batson and his ideas. Shouldn't this second half be made into a separate paragraph under a heading of Daniel Batson?  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2605:A000:B702:2800:24E0:75DA:FBCC:FA0F (talk) 19:22, 17 September 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Other Early Theorists: Gordon Allport & Daniel Batson 

message: The section on Freud names the three works Freud wrote on religion (The Future of an Illusion, Totem and Taboo, Moses and Monotheism) but does not give the publication date of these works. Vorbee (talk) 15:40, 24 June 2019 (UTC)
thread_title: Freud's works

message: The section on prejudice needs to make more of the distinction between extrinsic and intrinsic religiosity. Extrinsic religiosity has been found to correlate positively with prejudice, while intrinsic religiosity has been found to correlate negatively with prejudice. Vorbee (talk) 15:56, 2 April 2020 (UTC)
thread_title: Section on prejudice