Thinking About God Causes Internal Reflection in Believers and Unbelievers of God

Abstract

Previous research found that reflecting on God increased public self-awareness. There is, however, reason to expect that reflecting on God should also direct attention inward to the private self. Thus, this work examined whether priming God increases private self-awareness. The results showed that reflecting on God increased private self-awareness, irrespective of the belief in God, and the effect remained, even after controlling for trait levels of private self-awareness and state public self-awareness. Contrary to previous findings, reflecting on God did not increase public self-awareness. These findings provide a foundation for further research on a number of questions related to why God prompts internal reflection.

Keywords:

• God
• Self-awareness
• Self-consciousness
• Private self-awareness
• Public self-awareness

This work is supported by the Edward H. Arnold and Jeanne Donlevy Arnold Grant through Lebanon Valley College.

Author thanks Joseph Beland, Brandon Keller, and Emily Johansen for their help in data collection.

Notes

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.