Religion, negative emotions, and regulation

In broad terms, James’s postulations set the agenda for this chapter. That is, we will fi rst examine the evidence suggestive of a “sick-souled” neural profi le typifi ed by a predominance of negative emotionality that might predispose some individuals to seek out religion as a means of coping with such tendencies. More specifi cally, we will review neurophysiological research linking the same pattern of hemispheric functional dominance and neurotransmitter activity to both a predisposition towards spirituality/religiosity and a tendency to experience negative mood states and more global diffi culties in cognitive-affective regulation. With this as a backdrop, we will suggest that some individuals who possess such a “sick-souled” neural profi le may be inclined therefore to turn to religion as a means of coping with their negative affective states

The infernal now: Linking temporal inefficacy to cognitive ability and social adjustment

In three studies with younger and older adults, we examined the correlates of temporal inefficacy (TI), that is, discontent with the uncontrollability of the passage of time experienced as linear. Among young adults, high versus low TI was related to greater subjective salience of the present, but guided focus on either conception or death eliminated this relationship. Among older adults, higher TI was inversely related both to the capacity to engage in mental time travel—as assessed by an autobiographical recall task, suggesting that the salience of the present associated with TI reflects chronic difficulty in accessing past and future—and to working memory capacity, illustrating the pivotal role of cognitive resources in effective coping among older adults. Reflecting the perceived lack of control inherent to TI, higher TI was linked to compensatory efforts to reassert personal control in other domains—specifically, a heightened tendency to personalize and overattribute meaning to random events, a greater expressed willingness to subordinate a spouse's well-being to one's own, and a callous, manipulative attitude toward other people in general. Finally, TI was inversely related to age, suggesting that maturation may include reconciling oneself to the existential limits imposed by linear time

Transcendent experiences motivate "escape" from the body via intimate partnerships

Three studies involving younger and older samples tested a model centered upon individual differences in one's personal history of “immutable self” (IS) experiences, typified by consciousness transcending the usual spatiotemporal bounds associated with embodiment, such that conscious existence no longer seems contingent upon the physical body. In Study 1, optical-acoustic stimulation evoked an IS-related experience that increased the sense of physical containment (i.e., feeling isolated within one's body, separate from the rest of the world) among some individuals. Studies 2 and 3 showed that the heightened sense of physical containment associated with a history of IS experiences predicted intensified motivation to maintain an intimate partnership, previously shown elsewhere to reduce the salience of the body. Key comparisons between elderly Parkinson's disease patients versus their spouses and healthy controls provided suggestive evidence that dopaminergic function may be a critical contributor to this motivational sequence

Hearts strangely warmed (and cooled): Emotional experience in religious and atheistic individuals

In light of neurophysiological evidence suggesting a link between hemispheric dominance and religious preference, three studies tested whether atheists and religious individuals process emotions differently. Suggestive of right-hemispheric dominance, individuals who identified with religion reported more intense positive emotions associated with a recalled love experience (Study 1), greater sadness in immediate response to reading a tragic news story (Study 2), and more vivid recall of the subjective details of either their most recent birthday or an existential crisis (Study 3). They also reported greater alexithymia compared to atheists. Overall, agnostic/no religion individuals averaged in between these two groups. The results suggest that, relative to atheists, religious individuals have more accessible yet undifferentiated emotions, which may perhaps serve as raw materials for religious experience

Am I the stone? Overattribution of agency and religious orientation

Atran and Norenzayan (2004) proposed that an overactive agency detection module may contribute to the nearly ubiquitous recurrence of supernatural agents across religions. Based on this, 2 studies investigated whether individual differences in the tendency to attribute agency to inanimate objects in the physical environment (an index of overattribution of agency) differentially shape articulations of the religious sentiment—specifically, the intrinsic and immanence orientations—given the distinct conceptions of spiritual agency hypothesized to be associated with each. Study 1 documented a unique positive relationship between intrinsic orientation (devout commitment to traditional orthodoxy) and numinous spiritual experiences (typified by the sense of a powerful, directive Other who is distinct from self and the world), and between immanence orientation (religiously articulated motivation to transcend intra- and interpersonal boundaries) and unitive spiritual experiences (typified by a sense of connection between self, the world, and a spiritual Source). In Study 2, higher scores on a composite overattribution of agency measure, encompassing self-reported predisposition to anthropomorphize nonanimal entities and performance-based responsiveness to gaze cues embedded in inverted faces, predicted higher immanence (but not higher intrinsic) orientation scores. Results thus offer qualified support for the overactive agency detector hypothesis: Immanence religious orientation appears to be a motivational outcome of a perceptual world that is essentially pantheistic, that is, imbued with pervasive sense of agency without regard for the default distinction between animate and inanimate

Shame, sexual compulsivity, and eroticizing flirtatious others: An experimental study

Clinical observation and correlational studies with nonclinical samples suggest that a linkage between negative affective states (especially shame) and engagement in erotic pursuits typifies sexual compulsivity. The present study tested whether experimental induction of shame leads to increased interest in erotically suggestive targets among more sexually compulsive individuals. A total of 74 age-traditional heterosexual university students first recalled either an emotionally neutral or a shame-inducing personal experience, then completed a nonpredictive gaze-cueing task featuring flirtatious or emotionally neutral faces of the same or opposite sex. They also rated the faces’ attractiveness and completed a validated sexual compulsivity scale and two control measures (executive control, sociosexuality). Higher (versus lower) sexual compulsivity predicted weaker gaze-triggered attentional orienting in response to the flirtatious opposite-sex face in the shame (versus neutral) condition, and this was accounted for by (higher) attractiveness ratings of the flirtatious opposite-sex face. Shame thus appears to increase sexualization (i.e., reduces salience of agentic features and increases appeal of physical attributes) of erotically suggestive targets among more sexually compulsive individuals

For my eyes only: Gaze control, enmeshment, and relationship quality

Perceived closeness that preserves the distinctness of each partner enhances intimate relationship quality, whereas pseudocloseness or enmeshment—reflecting an inability to distinguish one's own thoughts and emotions from a partner's—may have more negative outcomes (R. J. Green & P. D. Werner, 1996). Two studies investigated whether a dispositional inability to differentiate self from other is manifested at the attentional level as reduced capacity to inhibit following the gaze of another (A. Frischen, A. P. Bayliss, & S. P. Tipper, 2007). Among healthy elderly spouses in Study 1, superior gaze control predicted superior sociocognitive functioning, and those with poorer gaze control abilities were perceived by the partner as constricting the perceiving partner's autonomy, which in turn predicted lower relationship satisfaction among the latter. Moreover, these links were mediated by enmeshment, as indicated by the percentage of “we”-focused versus “I”- or partner-focused thoughts and emotions in the partners' independent accounts of the same relationship events. Extending these findings in a sample of Parkinson's disease patients and their spouses, Study 2 revealed a biphasic effect of self–other differentiation on relationship dynamics: In the early stages of the disease, increased couple focus promoted superior relationship quality, whereas lack of self–other differentiation predicted poorer relationship quality later. Thus, dispositional variations in fundamental social-perceptual processes predict both close relationship dynamics and long-term relationship quality