Creating Positive, Negative, and Neutral God Concept Primes and Testing Their Impact on Scrupulosity Relevant Tasks and Symptoms

ABSTRACT

Three studies were conducted to develop primes that activate differing beliefs about God and to determine if these activated beliefs impact scrupulosity symptoms. In Study 1, potential positive, negative, and neutral primes were created from Bible verses and rated on arousal, valence, familiarity, and complexity. In Study 2, the selected primes were tested to determine if they differentially activated positive and negative beliefs about God. In Study 3, participants were randomly assigned to read one of three primes (positive, negative, or neutral). Participants then completed a thought-induction task and measures of scrupulosity and thought-action fusion. There were no significant differences in reactions to the thought-induction task or self-report measures of scrupulosity or thought-action fusion between conditions. An exploratory analysis revealed that participants in the negative condition had higher state anxiety following the prime compared to participants in the positive condition. Results demonstrate the potential of the primes to activate negative beliefs about God and highlight the possible detrimental impact negative beliefs about God may have on state anxiety. However, they do not suggest that the primes impact scrupulosity and related constructs.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

¹ Website for Amazon Mechanical Turk (MTurk): https://www.mturk.com/

² All questionnaires for Studies 1, 2, and 3 were completed on Qualtrics. Website for Qualtrics: https://www.qualtrics.com/

³ All scales included in the paper are available on OSF at https://osf.io/neay8/

⁴ Website for TurkPrime: https://www.cloudresearch.com/

Additional information

Funding

This research did not receive any specific grant from funding agencies in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.