The Effect of Thinking about Being Excluded by God on Well-Being: A Replication and Extension

ABSTRACT

Prior research has provided initial evidence that thinking about being excluded by God lowers self-reported well-being in a Dutch sample of Christian students. The current research sought to replicate this finding in two studies. The first experiment recruited a USA sample of Christian students from a secular and religious school. The second experiment recruited a USA online sample of Christians contacted via Mechanical Turk. Results of these two studies replicated the initial finding that thinking about being excluded by God lowers self-reported well-being relative to thinking about being included by God, or contemplating that God created the earth. Overall, these results show how people’s perceived relationship with God may influence their quality of life.

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Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Data availability statement

The data described in this article are openly available in the Open Science Framework at https://doi.org/10.17605/OSF.IO/4KBX2.

Open scholarship

This article has earned the Center for Open Science badges for Open Data and Preregistered. The data and materials are openly accessible at https://doi.org/10.17605/OSF.IO/4KBX2.

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Notes

¹ Exclusion condition text: My God, my God, why have You forsaken me? Why are You so far from saving me, so far from my words of groaning? I cry out by day, O my God, but You do not answer, and by night, but I have no rest (Psalm 22:1b-2).

² Exclusion condition text: Then Saul became afraid, because he noticed the LORD had abandoned him (Samuel 18:12).

³ Inclusion condition text: Do not be afraid or terrified because of them, for the LORD your God goes with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you (Deuteronomy 31:6).

⁴ Inclusion condition text: Neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord (Romans 8:39).

⁵ Control condition text: In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters (Genesis 1:1-2).

⁶ Control condition text: Thus the heavens and the earth were completed in their entire vast array. By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing; so on the seventh day he rested from all his work (Genesis 2:1-2).