On Wed, 20 Feb 2002 13:46:56 -0600 Rod Hetzel <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Does anyone know of any studies investigating the > association between atheism and psychological functioning? > Now this sounded like a question that could be approached empirically. I went to PsychInfo and began with a broad search, "atheism" in any descriptor field. Rather than the usual 10,000-hit return that one would get for terms like learning, memory, sex, and so on, PsychInfo had only 94 references! (Guess how many hits you would get for "Stroop effect"?) Of those 94 references, the vast majority were concerned with an analysis of Freud's stance on theism and atheism. (I thought of Nancy Melucci's comment at that moment.) The second group of references was related to attribution theory, what people thought about other people who were labeled "atheist."(...Yawn.) Finally, I got back to 1975 and discovered an empirical report by Smith, Wheeler, and Diener (1975,5, 320-330, J. Applied So. Psych). It found no difference in either tendency to cheat or tendency to engage in an altruistic act among "jesus people," religious people, nonreligious people, and atheists. There is almost no empirical work catalogued in PsychInfo on the behavioral or psychological effects of being or not being an atheist. This is interesting in light of the heat generated by this topic. Ken ---------------------- Kenneth M. Steele, Ph.D. [EMAIL PROTECTED] Dept. of Psychology Appalachian State University Boone, NC 28608 USA --- You are currently subscribed to tips as: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
