«God as a Causal Agent»: Religious Attribution in Orthodox Context

895

Abstract

The paper summarises the process of adaptation of the God as a Causal Agent Scale (GCA) carried out on a sample of students of orthodox educational institutions. This scale aims to measure religious attribution in an individual, that is, is/her inclination to attribute the causes of events to divine agents. The data obtained in the study proved that all items of the GCA Scale have acceptable internal consistency. The first stage of validisation involved analysing the correlations with the rates of the Subjective Control Scale (SCS). Weak positive correlations were found with the rates of internality in all scales of the SCS except for the Interpersonal Relationships scale. The second stage invovled a quasiexperimental study that revealed positive correlations between the GCA and supernatural attribution. Moreover, the outcomes of factor analysis of variance showed significant differences between the subjects with high and low rates in GCA in their likeliness to use supernatural explanations. All these findings suggest that the GCA Scale is an effective tool for measuring one’s inclination to religious attribution within the Russian orthodox context.

General Information

Keywords: psychology of religion, attribution theory, causal agents, causal schemes, casuality, God as a Causal Agent Scale

Journal rubric: Empirical Research

DOI: https://doi.org/10.17759/chp.2017130308

For citation: Malevich T.V., Kolkunova K.A., Kozhevnikov D.D. «God as a Causal Agent»: Religious Attribution in Orthodox Context. Kul'turno-istoricheskaya psikhologiya = Cultural-Historical Psychology, 2017. Vol. 13, no. 3, pp. 60–70. DOI: 10.17759/chp.2017130308. (In Russ., аbstr. in Engl.)

References

  1. Bazhin E.F., Golynkina E.A., Etkind L.M. Metod issledovaniya urovnya sub”ektivnogo kontrolya [Subjective Control Level Studying Method]. Psikhologicheskii zhurnal [Psychological Journal], 1984. Vol. 5, no. 3, pp. 152—162.
  2. Davydenkov O. Dogmaticheskoe bogoslovie [Dogmatic Theology]. Moscow: PSTGU Publ., 2013. 622 p.
  3. Kelli G. Protsess kauzal’noi atributsii [Causal Attribution Process]. In Andreeva G.M., Bogomolova N.N., Petrovskaya L.A. (eds.), Sovremennaya zarubezhnaya sotsial’naya psikhologiya. Teksty [Contemporary Foreign Social Psychology. Texts]. Moscow: Moscow University Publishing House, 1984, pp. 127—137. (In Russ.).
  4. Poseshchenie sluzhb, soblyudenie posta, noshenie kresta i molitva [Service attendance, fasting, cross wearing and prayer]. Nekommercheskaya Issledovatel’skaya Sluzhba «Sreda» [Non-commercial research center Sreda]. 23.08.2012. URL: http://sreda.org/opros/43-kto-iz-rossiyan-postitsya-nosit-krestik-molitsya (Accessed 26.06.2017).
  5. Sotsial’nyi portret studenta PSTGU: opyt izucheniya integrativnykh vuzov (2009—2010). [Elektronnyi resurs]. [St Tikhon’s Orthodox university students’ social image: attempt to study integrative university]. URL: download.pstgu.ru/ DATACENTER/DIR_FILES/DIR_ZIP/Docum/2010%20 portret.doc (Accessed 26.06.2017).
  6. Alloy L.B., Tabachnik N. Assessment of covariation by humans and animals: The joint influence of prior expectations and current situational information. Psychological Review, 1984. Vol. 91, no. 1, pp. 112—149. doi:10.1037/0033- 295X.91.1.112
  7. Be’ery G., Ben-Nun Bloom P. God and the Welfare State — Substitutes or complements? An experimental test of the effect of belief in God’s control. PLoS ONE, 2015. Vol. 10, no. 6, p. e0128858. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0128858
  8. Benet-Martmez V. Cross-cultural personality research: Conceptual and methodological issues. In Robins R.W., Fraley R.C., Krueger R. (eds.), Handbook of research methods in personality psychology. N.Y.: Guildford Press, 2007, pp. 170—189.
  9. Bernt F.M. Religious commitment, attributional style, and gender as predictors of undergraduate volunteer behavior and attitudes. Journal of Psychology & Theology, 1999. Vol. 27, no. 3, pp. 261—272.
  10. Boyer P. Cognitive constraints on cultural representations: Natural ontologies and religious ideas. In Hirschfeld L.A., Gelman S.A. (eds.). Mapping the mind: Domain specificity in cognition and culture. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994, pp. 391—411.
  11. Degelman D., Lynn D. The development and preliminary validation of the belief in divine intervention scale. Journal of Psychology and Theology, 1995. Vol. 23, pp. 37—44.
  12. DeVellis R.F., DeVellis B.M., Revicki D.A., Lurie S.J., Runyan D.K., Bristol M. Development and validation of the Child Improvement Locus of Control (CILC) scales. Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology, 1985. Vol. 3, pp. 307—324. doi:10.1521/jscp.1985.3.3.307
  13. Jackson L.E., Coursey R.D. The relationship of God control and internal locus of control to intrinsic religious motivation, coping and purpose in life. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, 1988. Vol. 27, no. 3, pp. 399—410. doi: 10.2307/1387378
  14. Kelley H.H. Attribution theory in social psychology. In Levine D. (ed.). Nebraska Symposium on Motivation. Vol. 15. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1967, pp. 192—238.
  15. Laurin K., Shariff A.F., Henrich J., Kay A.C. Outsourcing punishment to God: beliefs in divine control reduce earthly punishment. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 2015. Vol. 279(1741), pp. 3272—3281.
  16. Li Y.J., Johnson K.A., Cohen A.B., Williams M.J., Knowles E.D., Chen Z. Fundamental(ist) attribution error: Protestants are dispositionally focused. Joumal of Personality and Social Psychology, 2012. Vol. 102, no. 2, pp. 281—290. doi:10.1037/a0026294
  17. Murphy C. Women generally more religious than men, but not everywhere. Pew Research Center. 2016. URL: http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/03/22/women-generally-are-more-religious-than-men-but-not-everywhere (Accessed 26.06.2017).
  18. Pargament K.I., Kennell J., Hathaway W., Grevengoed N., Newman J., Jones W. Religion and the problem-solving process: Three styles of coping. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, 1988. Vol. 27, no. 1, pp. 90—104. doi:10.2307/1387404
  19. Ray S.D., Lockman J.D., Jones E.J., Kelly M.H. Attributions to God and Satan about life-altering events. Psychology of Religion and Spirituality, 2015. Vol. 7, no. 1, pp. 60—69. doi:10.1037/a0037884
  20. Ritzema R.J., Young C. Causal schemata and the attribution of supernatural causality. Journal of Psychology and Theology, 1983. Vol. 11, no. 1, pp. 36—43.
  21. Silvestri P.J. Locus of control and God dependence. Psychological Reports, 1979. Vol. 45, pp. 89—90. doi:10.2466/pr0.1979.45.1.89
  22. Smith M.C. Children’s use of the multiple sufficient cause schema in social perception. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. 1975. Vol. 32, no. 4, pp. 737—747. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.32.4.737
  23. Spilka B., Schmidt G. General attribution theory for the psychology of religion: The influence of event-character on attributions to God. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, 1983. Vol. 22, no. 4, pp. 326—339. doi: 10.2307/1385771
  24. Spilka B., Shaver P., Kirkpatrick L.A. A general attribution theory for the psychology of religion. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, 1985. Vol. 24, no. 1, pp. 1—20. doi:10.2307/1386272

Information About the Authors

Tatiana V. Malevich, PhD in Philosophy, Saint Tikhon’s Orthodox University, Research Fellow, The Center for the Psychological Research on Religion, Saint Tikhon’s Orthodox University, Moscow, Russia, e-mail: t.v.malevich@gmail.com

Ksenia A. Kolkunova, PhD in Philosophy, Saint Tikhon’s Orthodox University, Assistant professor, Department of Religious Studies, Saint Tikhon’s Orthodox University, Moscow, Russia, e-mail: Ksenia.kolkunova@gmail.com

Denis D. Kozhevnikov, Saint Tikhon’s Orthodox University, Research Fellow, The Center for the Psychological Research on Religion, Saint Tikhon’s Orthodox University, Moscow, Russia, e-mail: dpsikolog@gmail.com

Metrics

Views

Total: 2105
Previous month: 13
Current month: 0

Downloads

Total: 895
Previous month: 2
Current month: 0