Multifunctional religious systems and perturbed dynamics of psychological wellbeing

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Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

ORCID

Martin Lang http://orcid.org/0000-0002-2231-1059

Notes

1 Note that from the perspective of the complex social systems, it is difficult to isolate the specific effects of religious beliefs from the multiple interconnected elements that co-create the religious system (Sosis, 2017). Wherever possible, I use the term religious beliefs to keep the commentary close to the target book; however, the purported effects of religious systems on psychological distress are multifactorial (including specific ritual behaviors). Hence, I present available evidence relevant to the broadly construed religious systems. Moreover, other theories such as the meaning-making dynamics (Park, 2010; Park & George, 2018) include religious coping as an important facet of an individual’s global meaning.

2 I presented general findings from the selected studies in a simple linear fashion where adverse events prompt religiosity but some of these studies show also an opposite effect of adversity on religious beliefs, i.e. apostasy for some participants. While this is mostly a minor effect and I do not wish to complicate this commentary too much, it is worth noting that for some people, too much adversity may signal a lack of divine governance. Predicting who is more likely to convert/intensify belief and who may de-convert after distressing situations should be a fruitful area for future studies.

3 The ideas presented in this paragraph were developed together with Dimitris Xygalatas.

4 I would like to thank Tomáš Hampejs for useful discussion of ideas developed in this commentary.