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Drinkwater KG, Denovan A, Dagnall N. Paranormal belief, psychopathological symptoms, and well-being: Latent profile analysis and longitudinal assessment of relationships. PLoS One 2024; 19:e0297403. [PMID: 38446771 PMCID: PMC10917279 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0297403] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/04/2023] [Accepted: 12/27/2023] [Indexed: 03/08/2024] Open
Abstract
Within non-clinical samples the relationship between paranormal belief (PB) and well-being varies as a function of level of psychopathology. Accordingly, believers are best conceptualised as a heterogeneous set of sub-groups. The usefulness of previous findings has been restricted by conceptual methodological limitations. Specifically, overreliance on cross-sectional design, the assumption that believers constitute a homogeneous group, and consideration of direct effects. Acknowledging these limitations, the present study investigated whether profile membership derived from PB and psychopathology (schizotypy and manic-depressive experience) predicted well-being (i.e., stress, somatic complaints, life satisfaction and meaning in life) across time. Concurrently, analysis assessed the mediating effect of theoretically important variables (transliminality, happiness orientation, fearful and skeptical attitude). A sample of 1736 (Mage = 52, range = 18 to 88; 883 females, 845 males, eight non-binary) completed self-report measures indexing study constructs across time points. Latent profile analysis at baseline, identified three sub-groups varying in level of PB and psychopathology at baseline: Profile 1, moderate PB and high psychopathology; Profile 2, moderate PB and psychopathology; and Profile 3, moderate PB and low psychopathology. Path analysis demonstrated that Profile 1 (the highest psychopathology scoring profile) predicted higher negative and lower positive well-being over time in comparison with the other profiles. Moreover, Transliminality and Fearful Attitude positively mediated this relationship, whereas Skeptical Attitude produced negative mediation. These outcomes supported the presence of a sophisticated process underpinning the PB and well-being relationship. Overall, PB in the absence of psychopathology had no significant influence on well-being.
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Affiliation(s)
- Kenneth Graham Drinkwater
- Faculty of Health and Education, Department of Psychology, Manchester Metropolitan University, Manchester, United Kingdom
| | - Andrew Denovan
- Faculty of Health and Education, Department of Psychology, Manchester Metropolitan University, Manchester, United Kingdom
| | - Neil Dagnall
- Faculty of Health and Education, Department of Psychology, Manchester Metropolitan University, Manchester, United Kingdom
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Kumar S, Voracek M. The relationships of family income and caste-status with religiousness: Mediation role of intolerance of uncertainty. PLoS One 2022; 17:e0273174. [PMID: 36026518 PMCID: PMC9417042 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0273174] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/21/2021] [Accepted: 08/03/2022] [Indexed: 11/18/2022] Open
Abstract
The relationship between lower socioeconomic status (SES) and religiousness is well known; however, its (psychological mediation) mechanism is not clear. In the present study, we studied the mediation role of intolerance of uncertainty (IU; a personality measure of self-uncertainty) in the effect of SES on religiousness and its dimensions (i.e., believing, bonding, behaving, and belonging), in two different samples (students sample, N = 868, and community sample, N = 250), after controlling the effects of factors like age, sex, handedness, and self-reported risk-taking. The results showed that IU mediated the effects of lower family income and lower caste status (in students’ sample only) on religiousness and its dimensions; higher caste status had a direct effect on religiousness (and its dimensions), and; among the sub-factors of IU, only prospective IU affected religiousness. Thus, along with showing that IU is a mediator of the effects of lower family income and lower caste status on religiousness, the present study supports the contention that religiousness is a latent variable that varied factors can independently initiate. Moreover, the present study suggests a nuanced model of the relationship between the hierarchical caste system and religiousness.
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Affiliation(s)
- Sanjay Kumar
- Department of Psychology, D.A.V. College, Muzaffarnagar, India
- * E-mail: (SK); (MV)
| | - Martin Voracek
- Faculty of Psychology, Department of Cognition, Emotion, and Methods in Psychology, University of Vienna, Vienna¸ Austria
- * E-mail: (SK); (MV)
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Will Intelligent Latter-day Saints and Smart Conservatives Inherit the Earth? Differential Selection for Intelligence in the USA Based on Religiosity and Conservatism. EVOLUTIONARY PSYCHOLOGICAL SCIENCE 2022. [DOI: 10.1007/s40806-022-00327-y] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/25/2022]
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Dutton E, Madison G. "Blessed are the Nations with High Levels of Schizophrenia": National Level Schizophrenia Prevalence and Its Relationship with National Levels of Religiosity. JOURNAL OF RELIGION AND HEALTH 2022; 61:6-22. [PMID: 34338953 PMCID: PMC8837564 DOI: 10.1007/s10943-021-01353-z] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Accepted: 07/16/2021] [Indexed: 06/13/2023]
Abstract
Schizophrenia is correlated with religious delusions but, heretofore, the relationship between schizophrenia prevalence and religiosity has not been explored at the national level. Examining this relationship, we find that national level schizophrenia prevalence is correlated with national level religiosity and strongly negatively correlated with national level atheism across 125 countries. When controlling for cognitive performance and economic development in multiple regression analyses, the proportion of the variance explained was 2.9% (p < .005) for Religiousness and 5.1% for Atheism (p < .00005). Alternative causal interpretations of this association are discussed.
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Affiliation(s)
| | - Guy Madison
- Department of Psychology, Umeå University, Umeå, Sweden.
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Kong Y, Cui L, Yang Y, Cao M. A three-level meta-analysis of belief in a just world and antisociality: Differences between sample types and scales. PERSONALITY AND INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES 2021. [DOI: 10.1016/j.paid.2021.111065] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Submit a Manuscript] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/16/2022]
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Woodley Of Menie MA, Kanazawa S, Pallesen J, Sarraf MA. Paternal Age is Negatively Associated with Religious Behavior in a Post-60s But Not a Pre-60s US Birth Cohort: Testing a Prediction from the Social Epistasis Amplification Model. JOURNAL OF RELIGION AND HEALTH 2020; 59:2733-2752. [PMID: 32006140 DOI: 10.1007/s10943-020-00987-9] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 05/08/2023]
Abstract
Participation in social behaviors that enhance group-level fitness may be influenced by mutations that affect patterns of social epistasis in human populations. Mutations that cause individuals to not participate in these behaviors may weaken the ability of members of a group to coordinate and regulate behavior, which may in turn negatively affect fitness. To investigate the possibility that de novo mutations degrade these adaptive social behaviors, we examine the effect of paternal age (as a well-established proxy for de novo mutation load) on one such social behavior, namely religious observance, since religiosity may be a group-level cultural adaptation facilitating enhanced social coordination. Using two large samples (Wisconsin Longitudinal Study and AddHealth), each of a different US birth cohort, paternal age was used to hierarchically predict respondent's level of church attendance after controlling for multiple covariates. The effect is absent in WLS (β = .007, ns, N = 4560); however, it is present in AddHealth (β = - .046, p < .05, N = 4873) increasing the adjusted model R2 by .005. The WLS respondents were (mostly) born in the 1930s, whereas the AddHealth respondents were (mostly) born in the 1970s. This may indicate that social-epistatic regulation of behavior has weakened historically in the USA, which might stem from and enhance the ability for de novo mutations to influence behavior among more recently born cohorts-paralleling the secular rise in the heritability of age at sexual debut after the sexual revolution.
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Affiliation(s)
- Michael A Woodley Of Menie
- Center Leo Apostel for Interdisciplinary Studies, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Brussels, Belgium.
- Unz Foundation, Palo Alto, CA, USA.
| | - Satoshi Kanazawa
- School of Management, London School of Economics and Political Science, London, UK
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Spare the rod and spoil the group's cultural fitness? Conditions under which corporal punishment leads to detrimental and beneficial outcomes. Med Hypotheses 2020; 145:110334. [PMID: 33242737 DOI: 10.1016/j.mehy.2020.110334] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/23/2020] [Revised: 08/29/2020] [Accepted: 10/01/2020] [Indexed: 11/21/2022]
Abstract
Corporal punishment of children is common across human history, and the specific practice of striking the buttocks, known as spanking, seems to have developed independently across a number of separate cultures. This pattern suggests adaptive value, posing a paradox in view of the many reviews stating that spanking has purely negative outcomes on future mental health, and the recommendation of the American Academy of Pediatrics that it be outlawed. We purport to resolve this paradox by separating this particular type of corporal punishment from less controlled lashing out in anger, and we reanalyze these reviews in terms of psychological and physical health outcomes. We find that spanking is associated with positive mental health outcomes when (1) performed by calm parents in a (2) ritualized, structured fashion and combined with (3) other disciplinary techniques within (4) a loving relationship with the child, typically (5) as part of the practice of moral, collective religiosity, and when (6) controlling for confounding variables. In that spanking is noticeably practiced by conservative religious cultural groups, we hypothesize that it can be a fitness-promoting form of behaviour in line with religiousness being an example of a group-fitness-promoting adaptation.
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Uzarevic F, Coleman TJ. The psychology of nonbelievers. Curr Opin Psychol 2020; 40:131-138. [PMID: 33069981 DOI: 10.1016/j.copsyc.2020.08.026] [Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/08/2020] [Revised: 08/29/2020] [Accepted: 08/31/2020] [Indexed: 10/23/2022]
Abstract
Contrary to some conceptualizations, nonbelievers are more than simply those scoring low on religiosity scales. They seem to be characterized by analytic, flexible, and open-minded social-cognitive attributes, although this may interact with sociocultural levels of religiosity. This paper demonstrates that nonbelief, at least in the West, tends to coincide with specific worldviews, namely valuing rationality and science, as well as humanistic and liberal values. Furthermore, nonbelievers seem to parallel believers in various indicators of health. Finally, as all ideologists, nonbelievers may hold prejudicial attitudes toward groups perceived as threatening their (secular) worldviews, although this has some limits. Global increases in secularity make the nascent psychological study of nonbelievers and nonreligious worldviews an important research programme.
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Affiliation(s)
| | - Thomas J Coleman
- Coventry University, Brain, Belief, and Behaviour Research Laboratory, and the Centre for Trust, Peace, and Social Relations, UK; Society & Cognition Unit, University of Bialystok, Bialystok, Poland.
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Dutton E, Te Nijenhuis J, Metzen D, van der Linden D, Madison G. The Myth of the Stupid Believer: The Negative Religiousness-IQ Nexus is Not on General Intelligence (g) and is Likely a Product of the Relations Between IQ and Autism Spectrum Traits. JOURNAL OF RELIGION AND HEALTH 2020; 59:1567-1579. [PMID: 31587150 PMCID: PMC7239797 DOI: 10.1007/s10943-019-00926-3] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 05/16/2023]
Abstract
Numerous studies have found a negative relationship between religiousness and IQ. It is in the region of - 0.2, according to meta-analyses. The reasons for this relationship are, however, unknown. It has been suggested that higher intelligence leads to greater attraction to science, or that it helps to override evolved cognitive dispositions such as for religiousness. Either way, such explanations assume that the religion-IQ nexus is on general intelligence (g), rather than some subset of specialized cognitive abilities. In other words, they assume it is a Jensen effect. Two large datasets comparing groups with different levels of religiousness show that their IQ differences are not on g and must, therefore, be attributed to specialized abilities. An analysis of the specialized abilities on which the religious and non-religious groups differ reveals no clear pattern. We cautiously suggest that this may be explicable in terms of autism spectrum disorder traits among people with high IQ scores, because such traits are negatively associated with religiousness.
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Affiliation(s)
| | | | | | | | - Guy Madison
- Department of Psychology, Umeå University, Umeå, Sweden.
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Dutton E, Van der Linden D, Madison G. Why do High IQ Societies Differ in Intellectual Achievement? The Role of Schizophrenia and Left‐Handedness in Per Capita Scientific Publications and Nobel Prizes. JOURNAL OF CREATIVE BEHAVIOR 2019. [DOI: 10.1002/jocb.416] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.6] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 01/08/2023]
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Dutton E. Jewish Group Evolutionary Strategy Is the Most Plausible Hypothesis: a Response to Nathan Cofnas’ Critical Analysis of Kevin MacDonald’s Theory of Jewish Involvement in Twentieth Century Ideological Movements. EVOLUTIONARY PSYCHOLOGICAL SCIENCE 2019. [DOI: 10.1007/s40806-018-0158-4] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 10/14/2022]
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