Date of Award

6-2011

Document Type

Open Access

Degree Name

Bachelor of Science

Department

Psychology

First Advisor

Kenneth DeBono

Language

English

Keywords

religion, beliefs, orientation, god, attribution

Abstract

Religion exists as one of the greatest driving forces for a person’s political beliefs and overall outlook on life. In an attempt to understand such a complex phenomenon, researchers have examined factors that influence a person’s likelihood of acquiring religious beliefs. Past research has suggested a relation to religious emphasis in the home and future religious tendencies. This present study examined the role of acquisition of religious beliefs (via religious emphasis in one’s childhood home) and religious orientation on a person’s likelihood of making god attributions. It was hypothesized that religious emphasis and intrinsic religiosity would increase a person’s likelihood of making god attributions, but that event type would serve as a moderator for these attributions. Specifically, it was predicted that uncontrollable events would elicit more god attributions than controllable events and that the highest number of god attributions would be made in the uncontrollable/positive event condition. The data supported the hypothesis that both emphasis on religion in childhood homes and intrinsic religiosity would predict greater numbers of god attributions. However, extrinsically religious persons were only slightly less likely to make god attributions. Additionally, uncontrollable events were found to be positively correlated with god attributions, but uncontrollable and negative events were found to elicit the greatest number of god attributions of all the conditions.

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