Search

Pro-social behaviours may be prompted or inhibited depending on the situation. Numerous experiments show that, when exposed to the idea of money, people are less willing to help, devote their time or share their resources with others (Vohs et al. Science, 314, 1154–1156, 2006, Current Directions in Psychological Science, 17(3), 208–212, 2008). Conversely, when exposed to the idea of spirituality, they often cheat less and are more willing to help others (Mazar and Ariely Journal of Marketing Research, 45, 633–644, 2008; Randolph-Seng and Nielsen The International Journal for the Psychology of Religion, 17(4), 303–315, 2007). The aim of this article is to present the results of two experiments in which we activated thoughts about money, i.e. both cash and credit cards, and thoughts about spirituality in order to find out in what way these two kinds of activation may influence pro-social behaviours. In experiment 1, participants, when reminded of money, offered lower donations to others whereas those reminded of spirituality offered higher donations. In experiment 2, those participants reminded of money offered to devote less time to help others whereas those reminded of spirituality offered to devote more time to help others.

The present research investigates the relationship between anxiety and the religiosity dimensions that Wulff (Psychology of religion: classic and contemporary views, Wiley, New York, 1991; Psychology of religion. Classic and contemporary views, Wiley, New York, 1997; Psychologia religii. Klasyczna i wspolczesna, Wydawnictwo Szkolne i Pedagogiczne, Warszawa, 1999) described as Exclusion vs. Inclusion of Transcendence and Literal vs. Symbolic. The researchers used the Post-Critical Belief scale (Hutsebaut in J Empir Theol 9(2):48–66, 1996; J Empir Theol 10(1):39–54, 1997) to measure Wulff’s religiosity dimensions and the IPAT scale (Krug et al. 1967) to measure anxiety. Results from an adult sample (N = 83) suggest that three dimensions show significant relations with anxiety. Orthodoxy correlated negatively with suspiciousness (L) and positively with guilt proneness (O) factor—in the whole sample. Among women, Historical Relativism negatively correlated with suspiciousness (L), lack of integration (Q3), general anxiety and covert anxiety. Among men, Historical Relativism positively correlated with tension (Q4) and emotional instability (C), general anxiety, covert anxiety and overt anxiety. External Critique was correlated with suspiciousness (L) by men.

I was born too early in the twentieth century to be able to acquire a university degree in psychology, for this kind of faculty did not yet exist when I was a university student, either in Louvain or in other European cities. Lack of a formal qualification had not, however, hindered Freud, Piaget, and a number of other eminent psychologists, and it did not prevent me from accepting a nomination in psychology. I was, in fact, not completely unprepared, for at Louvain University, where I carried out my doctoral studies, there was considerable interest in the nascent psychological sciences, particularly in the Faculty of Philosophy. As early as 1920, they were giving full attention to the epistemological questions of perception and of free will, in discussion with positivism and post-Kantian epistemology. Gradually, and especially in the second half of the twentieth century, an increasing number of lectures were devoted to the “depth psychology” of Freud, Jung, Adler, and the newly developed American psychology of “human becoming”. As is well known, psychology of religion is important in all these psychologies, in spite of a declaration by a Russian psychologist at the international congress in Mexico in 1963 that dead religion no longer constituted an object of interest to psychologists.

Writing any kind of autobiography is daunting, difficult, and somewhat distressing. I fear both the egocentrism and inaccuracy such an effort may convey, yet I am also flattered to be asked to accept such a responsibility. This is a serious task but it should not be a grave and solemn one. It has its limits and I have always enjoyed embracing a little irreverence now and then. I do feel I should pen various biographical views for those who will follow me. These will help complete a life well lived since my birth in 1926. Consider that I feel I am so old that I remember when the Dead Sea was only sick. I stole that line from a now deceased comedian. In any event with much ambivalence I offer the following primarily relative to my work in the psychology of religion. Most of those to whom I relate professionally assume that my attraction to the field is an expression of a deep religious commitment. I do not share those views. This is not to say that I have never sampled their vision for I have lived the religious quest from one extreme to the other. Complexity has replaced simplicity and tradition; my current predilection is to seek answers by adhering to a hard science viewpoint. Let me therefore employ these pages to locate the path to my current inclinations. Returning to the task at hand, my guess is that at least two courses became interwoven in my becoming a psychologist of religion: religion and psychology. Underlying these are probably some more basic propensities.

The suggestion of Jacob Belzen that I contribute to a collection of autobiographies of outstanding psychologists of religion was a real surprise to me. This field has been, so to speak, the love of my late maturity only (I am really a late rider in this sense of the word!), and the amount of work I have managed to do here has been quite modest. And yet, on thinking it over, I accepted. Perhaps (as Jacob believes) my specific path towards as well as in the psychology of religion may be of particular interest to colleagues in the traditionally democratic countries where science, including the science of religion, has developed freely and without political or ideological restrictions. Perhaps my unique experience may reveal something substantial about my time, my country, and its spirituality or even about the psychology of religion in general. So, here is my story.

If I look back at the last 40 years of my involvement with psychology of religion, I can see various connections with other areas of interest in life. My involvement in this field is bound up with other events related to my own personal life and the development of my career as a psychologist and psychoanalyst. In a sense, my work on psychology of religion has been interconnected with the development of the discipline in Italy (Aletti, 1992a) and, in a small way, in the world. I am aware that an autobiography is by necessity a reconstruction and a product of a personal narrative, where particular memories, phases, and turning points are selected from a very subjective perspective and therefore conditioned by various conscious and unconscious factors. Seen in this way, an autobiography is more a narrative of one’s own formation than a compilation of events, but perhaps the sharing of an old man’s experiences within a particular discipline will prove more useful to the younger generation than a list of publications, which could in any case be found elsewhere.

My father, a lieutenant colonel, was transferred several times, so I spent my childhood in various garrison towns. That had advantages and disadvantages. (As does everything, I learned that while still a child. When playing ball I lost the sight in my right eye; I had to lie in bed for a long time, and we hoped that it would heal. I’ve always had trouble with it, but on the other hand, I didn’t have to do any military service, which in turn was an advantage.) I started high school in Skovde, another garrison town, where we had lived since 1916; the school didn’t offer Latin, however, so I had to make up for that later.

I started out as a medical student; I wanted to become a physician. My hopes were dashed very early on, however: I decided after only a few semesters to change over to theology, but continued to study psychology and theology in tandem. In 1952 I obtained my PhD in theology, having written my dissertation on Johann Christoph Blumhardt (Scharfenberg, 1959). This study of Blumhardt’s importance to spiritual care was my first independent step toward the psychology of religion, although I had become acquainted to some extent with the subject during my studies. I studied in Jena, Halle, and Tubingen, in the last also with Eduard Spranger (1882–1963), who in his late years once again lectured and published on the psychology of religion in a most impressive way.

I began to think of myself as a psychologist of religion when I was a doctoral ­student at the University of Chicago from 1966 to 1970. My location was the Divinity School and, more particularly, in the area called “Religion and Personality.” Prior to my doctoral studies, I had spent the academic year at Yale Divinity School (1965–1966), where I had previously received the Bachelor of Divinity (BD) degree in 1963. I was in the Master of Sacred Theology (STM) degree program. It was during this year that I became interested in the psychology of religion and began searching for doctoral programs in this academic field.

I had two early ambitions. One was to be teacher. My father discouraged that. He had what seemed to be a perfectly satisfactory career as a classroom and head teacher, but felt disappointed that his family circumstances hadn’t allowed him to go to university; teacher training in the early twentieth century was seen as a second best to university. My mother’s views and experiences were similar. She could have gone to university, she said, but the funding for her university place was contingent on teaching thereafter. So she opted to go straight into the workplace, but felt intellectually frustrated in her office jobs, and always regretted missing out on university. My intellectually frustrated parents said they were sure that “these days” (late 1950s) you can achieve whatever you set your mind to. They certainly encouraged serious reading. Our house was lined with books: history, biography, science, religious, and literary classics. So in our family, we read and read.

My first encounter with the psychology of religion must have been through the man I have always considered my true teacher: H. T. de Graaf.1,2 He was a typical liberal Protestant, who did not believe in the bodily resurrection, and for whom the significance of Easter and Ascension and other Christian feast days was not fixed, but formed the subject of inquisitive contemplation. He was a great scholar, an original and independent thinker, and a man of integrity and deep faith, but he was older than Roessingh, his predecessor at the University of Leiden, who died young.3 He ­commanded the respect of the students, but did not move them as Roessingh had done. During lectures he gave the impression of being someone who was genuinely interested in many things, who was very knowledgeable, thought about things seriously, and therefore had a lot to offer, yet struggled to find an adequate way of doing this (his explanations were dry and rather uninspiring) as well as being someone who lived a deeply pious life but was unable to share this with others.

The path that brought me to the psychology of religion says much about the precarious predicament of this specialist field in the German academic world, both then and now: it took me abroad, and it also led me to practical theology, or to be more precise, religious education (Religionspadagogik).

It is humbling to be asked to contribute to what amounts to a history of the ­psychology of religion in autobiography. Many of the names in this volume occur in my story, either as friends, colleagues, or scholars who have influenced and informed my own work. Autobiographies, as we know, both conceal and reveal. Historians will accept the task of unraveling what is lasting and true in any personal narrative. In my own case, I focus on an intellectual narrative, revealing only those personal factors that helped shape my views. I do not focus on specific dates, many of which are only recollections. Nor do I cite many personal references, allowing my vita to speak for itself. It is only in looking back that I realize I was fortunate to be part of a group of scholars who championed the resurgence of the psychology of religion in the 1960s. How I came to be part of this resurgence is the story I want to tell.