Analogue Measures of Religion: Experimental Psychology of Religion Revisited

Abstract

There has been at the scarcity of laboratory-type methods in research on the psychology of religion. Many, if not most, empirical studies in the field have been cross-sectional investigations of how certain religious and other attitudinal or behavioural variables interrelate. The value of approaches utilizing experimental controls can be seen in the way in which the impact of independent variables on actual behaviours can be assessed. Often this type of research provides analogues or simulations of the way religion functions in everyday life. Several illustrations of these types of studies are reviewed. These include the Darley and Batson's (1973) “Good Samaritan” study, Spradlin's (1981) research on religious experience attributions, the study of the effect of mental set on self-denial by Raney (1984), and Forrnan and Malony's (1987) investigation of the effects of visualizing sinful acts on physiological responses. These studies illustrate the value of the experimental approach in the types of conclusions that can be drawn from studies where variables are controlled experimentally rather than statistically. In spite of the methodological problems this approach involves, it is argued that the psychology of religion would profit greatly from an increased use of these analogue-type experiments .