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- Title
Beliefs about God, Psychiatric Symptoms, and Evolutionary Psychiatry.
- Authors
Flannelly, Kevin; Galek, Kathleen; Ellison, Christopher; Koenig, Harold
- Abstract
The present study analyzed the association between specific beliefs about God and psychiatric symptoms among a representative sample of 1,306 U.S. adults. Three pairs of beliefs about God served as the independent variables: Close and Loving, Approving and Forgiving, and Creating and Judging. The dependent variables were measures of General Anxiety, Depression, Obsessive-Compulsion, Paranoid Ideation, Social Anxiety, and Somatization. As hypothesized, the strength of participants’ belief in a Close and Loving God had a significant salutary association with overall psychiatric symptomology, and the strength of this association was significantly stronger than that of the other beliefs, which had little association with the psychiatric symptomology. The authors discuss the findings in the context of evolutionary psychiatry, and the relevance of Evolutionary Threat Assessment Systems Theory in research on religious beliefs.
- Subjects
ATTRIBUTES of God; PSYCHIATRY &; religion; BELIEF &; doubt; PSYCHIATRIC research; MENTAL illness &; religion; HEALTH; RELIGION
- Publication
Journal of Religion & Health, 2010, Vol 49, Issue 2, p246
- ISSN
0022-4197
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1007/s10943-009-9244-z