Although it has been hypothesized that culture and religion play an important role in sexuality, the relative roles of acculturation and religiosity on ethnic differences in sexual attitudes have not been often empirically explored. The present study assessed differences in sexual attitudes in Euro-American, Asian, and Hispanic American populations using measures of acculturation to analyze the...

Research indicates that religiosity plays a complex role in mental illness. Despite this link, little work has been done to clarify the role of religiosity in persons exhibiting non-clinical psychosis (NCP, individuals experiencing fleeting psychotic-like symptoms in the absence of a formal psychotic disorder). Further, there are no NCP investigations into whether abnormalities exist in brain s...

Current theories can support conflicting accounts of the effects of childhood maltreatment on adult religiosity. However, in the relevant empirical research there are few examples of probability sampling or a focus on nonsexual forms of abuse. It is also uncommon to control for risk factors for abuse, which may themselves also affect adult religiosity. This study attempts to overcome some of th...

The aim of the present study was to examine the association between Eysenck’s personality dimensions and religiosity. A sample of 227 Kuwaiti Muslim undergraduates completed the Arabic versions of the Eysenck Personality Questionnaire, and the Muslim Attitude towards Religiosity Scale. Men obtained significantly higher mean scores on psychoticism than did their female counterparts and the effec...

This study explored relations between religiosity, both parent and student, and maternal parenting style and student academic self-regulation, academic achievement, and risk behavior among African-American youth attending a parochial college. Eighty-five students completed self-report survey measures of religiosity, self-regulation, academic achievement, and risk behavior. Participants also com...

BACKGROUND Conservation of biodiversity is primary important of today's critically vulnerable environment. Efficient conservation can be possible only with the long-term participation and understanding of the communities. Ritual beliefs of the indigenous people are one of the important tools to understand the local communities and aid the nature conservation. In this paper, we documented contem...

Religiosity, especially religious fundamentalism, is often assumed to have an inherent connection with conservative politics. This article proposes that the relationship varies by race in the United States. In Study 1, race moderated the relationships between religiosity indicators and political alignment in a nationally representative sample. In Study 2, the effect replicated in a student samp...

Although genetic factors underpin individual differences in religiosity, the psychological mechanisms through which such influences are manifested are presently unknown. Religiosity is associated with concerns for community integration and existential certainty, suggesting that heritable influences underlying such sentiments may overlap with heritable influences underpinning religiosity. Here w...

The concept of “ritual syntax” is developed by relating it to cognitive studies of ritual, providing a fuller theoretical basis. Developing theoretical grounding requires differentiating between the members of five pairs of concepts: production is not the same as analysis, syntax is not the same as semantics, ritual is not the same as the mental, cognition is not the same as the mental, and syn...

How do people feel during extreme collective rituals? Despite longstanding speculation, few studies have attempted to quantify ritual experiences. Using a novel pre/post design, we quantified physiological fluctuations (heart rates) and self-reported affective states from a collective fire-walking ritual in a Mauritian Hindu community. Specifically, we compared changes in levels of happiness, f...