Review of Journal Article: Psychology of Religion - Coursework Example

INTRODUCTION The psychology of religion studies many different aspects of religious experience, such as mystical and ecstatic states, the universality of religious feeling across cultures, the relationship between ethics and religion, and comparative theories about religion. It includes many research approaches including descriptive, experimental (e.g. the effect of prayer), correlational, or psychodynamic (Wulff, 1991). Psychologists of religion do not debate about the actual existence or non-existence of God, or the truth of any religious system. These questions are addressed by theologians and philosophers. The psychology of religion merely tries to understand more about the human experience of religion and spirituality (Wulff, 1991, Nielsen, 2010). This article was chosen because it covers an aspect of the psychology of religion which had not been covered before, namely the relationship between religious involvement and fidelity in married couples. As the author points out, similar studies have been done but these tend to measure religious involvement by the person’s attendance at a place of worship such as a church, and the method used is usually a survey which is quite impersonal. In contrast, the current research studied the relationship between religious involvement and marital fidelity by interviewing people about their deeper personal beliefs. This allowed respondents to give fuller and more personalised answers rather than just reporting about their church attendance. For this reason, the article provides more in-depth information than previous research, and it is of interest to anyone wishing to understand the relationship between a healthy marriage and being deeply religious. The current research is descriptive in nature and is qualitative (in-depth) rather than quantitative (statistical). It aims to understand the relationship between religious involvement and marital fidelity. It is relevant to academics as well as professionals such as pastoral psychologists and religious counsellors. CRITIQUE In this section I will critically examine various aspects of the article, presented under separate subheadings in each case. Theoretical background The article does not provide an adequate introduction or literature review at the beginning. The author discusses the issue of marital infidelity, but he does not locate this clearly within the field of the psychology of religion. An introduction would have been the best place to give a summary of relevant research and concepts, and to show how the current research fits into the field rather than just focusing on infidelity. It is also the best place to define key terms and concepts; however, most of the terms and concepts used are familiar enough that an educated lay reader would be able to understand them. The author also tends not to define or explain key concepts and terms on the first usage but only on the second or third usage. An example of this is ‘grounded theory’ since this is a concept from the social sciences and is not otherwise familiar. Explaining this term at the start would have given the reader a clearer idea of how the research was carried out, and what can be expected from any research that uses grounded theory. Unfortunately, grounded theory is only described and discussed much later in the article. The same problem occurs when the author first mentions Dollahite and Marks’ (2005) call for more research. He states that the current study is a response to this call, but he does not summarise Dollahite and Marks’ findings or specific call until much later in the paper. Another concept which should have been outlined early on is the difference between extrinsic and intrinsic religious motivation or involvement. This is a key concept in the psychology of religion. It relates to the present study’s aim to learn more about intrinsic religious experience. Extrinsic religiosity is measured by, for example, church attendance, whereas intrinsic religious orientation involves values and the personal quest for spiritual meaning. The current study describes this difference, but fails to identify it as an ongoing debate about extrinsic-intrinsic religiosity. Instead, the paper describes such information without ever concisely giving these key concepts. The author states several times that measures of church attendance, or survey measures in general, are not adequate to explain the deeper and more subjective aspects of religious experience. While this is true, church attendance and surveys are perfectly valid measurements for extrinsic religious motivation. It confuses the matter to present this as a shortcoming without explaining that while it is a good extrinsic measure, it does leave the intrinsic aspect untapped. The author thus fails to link his work into the broader theoretical field as well as he could have. The author also does not give an adequate description of the difference between quantitative and qualitative research methods. He merely mentions this and states that his own work falls into the latter camp, but he does not give enough detail. Again, he does not explain that survey research is perfectly appropriate for quantitative research. It is only through the use of large samples, which yield less personalised and more standardised data, that one can identify social or collective trends. The aim of qualitative research is different in that it tries to get inside the subjective and highly personal inner world of the individual, and it is not as much concerned with overall community trends. Because he does not clearly describe this difference, the author again fails to locate his own work fully in the field of psychology. Similarly, while he cites previous research, he does so in quite vague terms. For example, he shows how the study relates to mental health and marital well-being. He states that religion is a protective factor against infidelity, and that infidelity is correlated with an increase in problems such as divorce and depression. Therefore, it is important to understand exactly how and why religion gives this protective factor, and the current research attempt to do this. This part of his argument is good. But his statement that ‘In order to generate rich, qualitative data on the protective nature of religious involvement, we chose a highly religious sample’ is flawed. Rich qualitative data comes from the type of interview or measurement instrument used and the interviewer’s skills in applying them. The quality of the data does not come purely from the choice of sample. Method The description of the method of analysis, which appears halfway through the paper, gives quite a good overview of the process but it does not explain any of the finer details. Such details would include how he tried to falsify the emerging theory, and the number of instances (or subjects) taken as a cut-off for including or excluding any given theme. He does give a fairly clear initial account of his research question, but he then does not state exactly how he will address it, apart from saying that he is doing grounded theory research. The fact that he then draws heavily on the existing literature while at the same time analysing his own data is confusing. It would have been better for him to first present a more thorough overview of findings suggested by previous research, followed by a separate section dealing with the results of the current study. This would have made it clear what areas of the current theory may have been suggested by previous research rather than being purely grounded theory arising from the current study. In the manner in which the material is presented, there is no clear distinction between ideas gleaned from earlier studies and those sparked purely from the current research. This means that the approach of using grounded theory was weakened, because the researcher was probably biased in his approach to the raw data. He may already have had some ideas from reading the previous research, which sensitised him to aspects which he wanted to cover in his own theory. Alternatively. if he did really develop his own theory and themes purely on the basis of grounded theory, he then reviewed the literature to see if it contained further evidence of those themes. This is normal and acceptable in grounded theory (Charmaz, 2006) but either way he should have described his method very precisely. If he first reviewed the literature and then developed a loose hypothesis about what to look out for, this is not proper grounded theory but amounts to exploratory hypothesis testing. The fact that he has not highlighted which route he took makes one wonder whether he fully appreciates the difference. An indication that he was testing a hypothesis rather than doing grounded theory appears in the statement that ‘Some connections (e.g., between moral values and sanctified marriage) seem to make logical sense; however, they were not grounded in the data and are thus not reflected in the model.’ Logically and from a methodological point of view the paper is thus not as strong as it could be. In addition, the overall presentation of material is poorly structured and the flow of conclusions and arguments is poor. This is due in large part to the fact that he does not first establish exactly what is grounded theory and what is hypothesis testing, but rather presents an overview of prior related research together with his own data and then a continued literature review, plus the development of a conceptual model. In terms of the sample selection, it is quite a large sample for a qualitative study but the size is acceptable. He cites as his reason for selecting highly religious couples the approach of Boss (1980), who argued that ‘a good way to develop meaningful theoretical constructs is by studying those who are prototypical or exemplary in the variables of interest’. Thus the sample is highly relevant to the research topic. However, one weakness is that the researcher relied on the opinions of clergy to identify which couples in their congregations were highly religious. This reliance on the opinion of a single authority figure (with several different clergy selecting couples from their own congregations) is not a very good way of selecting the sample. It would have been better to have at least two clergy involved in the selection process for each religious organisation, since this would have reduced the risk of subjective bias. He does not even address this shortcoming. Results In his discussion of the results, the author cites previous research on related themes. This is necessary but he could have been more systematic in his approach. For example, he states that ‘Figure 1 presents a conceptual model that illustrates the relationships between the major concepts and sub-concepts indicated by the data and by previous research’, thus rolling together his own research and the findings of previous studies by other people. This problem arises from the points discussed in detail above, and will not be further elaborated here. Because the research was qualitative, there are no operationalised variables and no specific measurables. The raw data took the form of interview transcripts, and this was analysed and reduced into themes. This is the usual methodology of grounded theory, which is a good choice for the current study. However, grounded theory is more rigorous than the article suggests. Also, additional data sources may also be used such as informal observations and conversations with relevant people outside of the interview room. The author does not state whether any such other sources of data influenced his identification of important themes. Of the 57 religious couples interviewed, a spread of quotes from different individuals in all or most of the religious groups is given. This suggests a careful analysis of the original data and a balanced approach in substantiating the findings. In general, the author does state his results quite clearly. He emphasises his four key themes by repeating them at different points throughout the article. He also links these findings back to the original research question and the prior literature quite adequately. CONCLUSION Generally, despite the theoretical and methodological weaknesses of this study, the author’s findings are relevant and insightful. However, the paper could have been strengthened by a more systematic approach to the theory, methodology, results and conclusions. Summary sections (e.g. an introduction or a closing summary) would have been helpful. He states that his sample is not representative of the broader religious population but only of the highly religious few, and he suggests that further research is needed with less religious couples. I agree with this point. The current study would provide a good starting point to investigate in more depth the four themes which he has identified as playing a role in the relationship between religious involvement and marital fidelity. References Charmaz, K. (2006). Constructing Grounded Theory: A Practical Guide Through Qualitative Analysis. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications. Psychology of Religion Pages by Michael Nielsen http://www.psywww.com/psyrelig/ accessed May 2010 Wulff, D.M (1991) Psychology of Religion. John Wiley & Sons, New York Read More

Theoretical background The article does not provide an adequate introduction or literature review at the beginning. The author discusses the issue of marital infidelity, but he does not locate this clearly within the field of the psychology of religion. An introduction would have been the best place to give a summary of relevant research and concepts, and to show how the current research fits into the field rather than just focusing on infidelity. It is also the best place to define key terms and concepts; however, most of the terms and concepts used are familiar enough that an educated lay reader would be able to understand them.

The author also tends not to define or explain key concepts and terms on the first usage but only on the second or third usage. An example of this is ‘grounded theory’ since this is a concept from the social sciences and is not otherwise familiar. Explaining this term at the start would have given the reader a clearer idea of how the research was carried out, and what can be expected from any research that uses grounded theory. Unfortunately, grounded theory is only described and discussed much later in the article.

The same problem occurs when the author first mentions Dollahite and Marks’ (2005) call for more research. He states that the current study is a response to this call, but he does not summarise Dollahite and Marks’ findings or specific call until much later in the paper. Another concept which should have been outlined early on is the difference between extrinsic and intrinsic religious motivation or involvement. This is a key concept in the psychology of religion. It relates to the present study’s aim to learn more about intrinsic religious experience.

Extrinsic religiosity is measured by, for example, church attendance, whereas intrinsic religious orientation involves values and the personal quest for spiritual meaning. The current study describes this difference, but fails to identify it as an ongoing debate about extrinsic-intrinsic religiosity. Instead, the paper describes such information without ever concisely giving these key concepts. The author states several times that measures of church attendance, or survey measures in general, are not adequate to explain the deeper and more subjective aspects of religious experience.

While this is true, church attendance and surveys are perfectly valid measurements for extrinsic religious motivation. It confuses the matter to present this as a shortcoming without explaining that while it is a good extrinsic measure, it does leave the intrinsic aspect untapped. The author thus fails to link his work into the broader theoretical field as well as he could have. The author also does not give an adequate description of the difference between quantitative and qualitative research methods.

He merely mentions this and states that his own work falls into the latter camp, but he does not give enough detail. Again, he does not explain that survey research is perfectly appropriate for quantitative research. It is only through the use of large samples, which yield less personalised and more standardised data, that one can identify social or collective trends. The aim of qualitative research is different in that it tries to get inside the subjective and highly personal inner world of the individual, and it is not as much concerned with overall community trends.

Because he does not clearly describe this difference, the author again fails to locate his own work fully in the field of psychology. Similarly, while he cites previous research, he does so in quite vague terms. For example, he shows how the study relates to mental health and marital well-being. He states that religion is a protective factor against infidelity, and that infidelity is correlated with an increase in problems such as divorce and depression. Therefore, it is important to understand exactly how and why religion gives this protective factor, and the current research attempt to do this.

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