Psychology, meaning making, and the study of worldviews: Beyond religion and non-religion.

The psychology of religion.

This chapter discusses progress in the psychology of religion by highlighting its rapid growth during the past 25 years. Recent conceptual and empirical developments are described, with an emphasis on the cognitive and affective basis of religious experience within personality and social psychology. Religion and spirituality as domains of study, as well as being common and important process var...

Psychology of Religion and Culture

After a brief introduction to psychology of religion as a scientific discipline, this article reviews psychological theories that propose explanations of religion as an individual and social reality, and provides information from recent empirical literature that, at least partially, confirms these theories. The theoretical and empirical evidence presented here encompasses a variety of psycholog...

Religion in meaning making and boundary work: theoretical explorations.

Based on the articles brought together for this special issue, this article proposes a transversal analysis and theoretical elaboration of the question of the uses of religious elements for meaning making and boundary work. In order to do so, we will first propose a sociocultural psychological perspective to examine meaning making dynamics. Second, we will apply a boundary work perspective, as ...

The cognitive and evolutionary psychology of religion

The following reviews recent developments in the cognitive and evolutionary psychology of religion, and argues for an adaptationist stance.

ATTACHMENT, EVOLUTION, and the PSYCHOLOGY OF RELIGION