Religious and spiritual (R/S) conversations at the end-of-life function to help patients and their families find comfort in difficult circumstances. Physicians who feel uncertain about how to discuss topics related to religious beliefs may seek to avoid R/S conversations with their patients. This study utilized a two-group objective structured clinical examination with a standardized patient to...

The spiritual but not religious (SBNR) are a growing population in secularizing societies. Yet, we know little about the underlying psychology of this group or their belief profile. Based on an individual difference approach, we address this knowledge gap by comparing SBNR with religious and non-religious participants. In a sample of Americans (n=1013), we find that the SBNR differ from non-rel...

The origin of values and preferences is an unresolved theoretical question in behavioural and social sciences. The Savanna-IQ Interaction Hypothesis, derived from the Savanna Principle and a theory of the evolution of general intelligence, suggests that more intelligent individuals may be more likely to acquire and espouse evolutionarily novel values and preferences (such as liberalism and athe...

The growing presence of Hinduism and its adherents in India’s cyberspace has led to the conceptualization of the categorical identity the ‘Internet-Hindu.’ Using Castell’s theorizing of communication in a network society, this paper articulates a critique on the nature of cyberspace and its use by the Hindu community in the construction of online religious identities. The context of this paper ...

BACKGROUND One of the most common mental health problems among women with infertility problems is depression. Research has shown that religious beliefs and practices can help people to cope with difficult situations. The purpose of this study was to explore the role of different religious coping strategies in predicting depression in a group of infertile women in Shiraz. METHODS A total of 72...

This Article, with a descriptive-analytical method and phenomenological approach, tries to explain the motives, solutions, and achievements of Dārā Shukūh (fl. 11th century AH) in Muslim-Hindu relations. It will also describe his ways of interaction and explain some negative reactions against his policies. Dārā Shukūh’s main motives were his special family upbringing, his chivalrous ...

OBJECTIVES Patients' religious communities often influence their medical decisions. To date, no study has examined what physicians think about the responsibilities borne by religious communities to provide guidance to patients in different clinical contexts. METHODS We mailed a confidential, self-administered survey to a stratified random sample of 1504 US primary care physicians (PCPs). Crit...

Goold (1997) has argued that the Porter (1980) five-forces framework for industry analysis is not applicable to nonprofits. In light of recent essays (e.g. Miller, 2002) as well as literature from the world of religious nonprofit organizations and organization theory, the Porter framework is analyzed through a review of representative literature. The religious nonprofit arena was chosen for thi...

This article examines whether shared religious beliefs and religious social relationships (Durkheim) and belief in a personal, moral God (Stark) negatively affect attitudes toward the acceptability of white-collar crime. In addition, using a large cross-national sample and estimating multilevel models, we test whether effects are conditional on modernization and religious contexts characterized...

Time-consuming and costly religious rituals pose a puzzle for economists committed to rational choice theories of human behavior. We propose that religious rituals promote in-group trust and cooperation that help to overcome collective-action problems. To test this hypothesis we design field experiments to measure the in-group cooperative behavior of members of religious and secular Israeli kib...