For God (or) Country: The Hydraulic Relation Between Government Instability and Belief in Religious Sources of Control

Journal of Personality and Social Psychology

Volumn 99, Issue 5, 2010, Pages 725-739

  Kay, Aaron C ^a   Shepherd, Steven ^b   Blatz, Craig W ^c   Chua, Sook Ning ^d   Galinsky, Adam D ^e  

^a DUKE UNIVERSITY   (United States)

^b UNIVERSITY OF WATERLOO   (Canada)

^c MACEWAN UNIVERSITY   (Canada)

^d MCGILL UNIVERSITY   (Canada)

^e NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY   (United States)

Author keywords

Compensatory control; God; Political instability; System justification

Indexed keywords

EID: 77958556092     PISSN: 00223514     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1037/a0021140     Document Type: Article

References (74)

1. Abramson L.Y., Seligman M.E.P., Teasdale J.D. Learned helplessness in humans: Critique and reformulation. Journal of Abnormal Psychology 1978, 87:49-74. doi: 10.1037/0021-843X.87.1.49.
2. Antonovsky A. Health, stress and coping 1979, Jossey-Bass, San Francisco, CA.
3. Atran S., Norenzayan A. Religion's evolutionary landscape: Counterintuition, commitment, compassion, communion. Behavioural and Brain Sciences 2004, 27:713-730. doi: 10.1017/S0140525X04000172.
4. Baltes M.M., Baltes P.B. The psychology of control and aging 1986, Erlbaum, Hillsdale, NJ.
5. Bandura A. Human agency in social cognitive theory. American Psychologist 1989, 44:1175-1184. doi: 10.1037/0003-066X.44.9.1175.
6. Becker E. Angel in armor 1969, Free Press, New York, NY.
7. Brewer M.B. The social self: On being the same and different at the same time. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 1991, 17:475-482. doi: 10.1177/0146167291175001.
8. Burger J.M. Negative reactions to increases in perceived personal control. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 1989, 56:246-256. doi: 10.1037/0022-3514.56.2.246.
9. Burger J.M., Cooper H.M. The desirability of control. Motivation and Emotion 1979, 3:381-393. doi: 10.1007/BF00994052.
10. Cohen A.B. Many forms of culture. American Psychologist 2009, 64:194-204. doi: 10.1037/a0015308.
11. Dweck C.S., Leggett E.L. A social cognitive approach to motivation and personality. Psychological Review 1988, 95:256-273. doi: 10.1037/0033-295X.95.2.256.
12. Fritsche I., Jonas E., Fankhänel T. The role of control motivation in mortality salience effects on ingroup support and defense. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 2008, 95:524-541. doi: 10.1037/a0012666.
13. Gelfand M.J., Nishii L.H., Raver J.L. On the nature and importance of cultural tightness-looseness. Journal of Applied Psychology 2006, 91:1225-1244. doi: 10.1037/0021-9010.91.6.1225.
14. Glass D.C., Singer J.E. Urban noise: Experiments on noise and social stressors 1972, Academic Press, New York, NY.
15. Heine S.J., Proulx T., Vohs K.D. The meaning maintenance model: On the coherence of social motivations. Personality and Social Psychology Review 2006, 10:88-110. doi: 10.1207/s15327957pspr1002_1.
16. Hogg M.A. Uncertainty-identity theory. Advances in experimental social psychology 2007, 39:69-126. Academic Press, San Diego, CA. M.P. Zanna (Ed.).
17. James W. The varieties of religious experience 1902, Longmans, Green, and Co, New York, NY, doi: 10.1037/10004-000.
18. Janoff-Bulman R. Shattered assumptions: Towards a new psychology of trauma 1992, Free Press, New York, NY.
19. Iyengar S.S., Lepper M.R. Rethinking the role of choice: A cultural perspective on intrinsic motivation. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 1999, 76:349-366.
20. Ji L.J., Peng K., Nisbett R.E. Culture, control, and perception of relationships in the environment. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 2000, 78:943-955. doi: 10.1037/0022-3514.78.5.943.
21. Jost J.T., Banaji M.R. The role of stereotyping in system justification and the production of false consciousness. British Journal of Social Psychology 1994, 33:1-27.
22. Jost J.T., Banaji M.R., Nosek B.A. A decade of system justification theory: Accumulated evidence of conscious and unconscious bolstering of the status quo. Political Psychology 2004, 25:881-919. doi: 10.1111/j.1467-9221.2004.00402.x.
23. Jost J.T., Glaser J., Kruglanski A.W., Sulloway F. Political conservatism as motivated social cognition. Psychological Bulletin 2003, 129:339-375. doi: 10.1037/0033-2909.129.3.339.
24. Jost J.T., Hunyady O. The psychology of system justification and the palliative function of ideology. European Review of Social Psychology 2003, 13:111-153. doi: 10.1080/10463280240000046.
25. Jost J.T., Kivetz Y., Rubini M., Guermandi G., Mosso C. System-justifying functions of complementary regional and ethnic stereotypes: Cross-national evidence. Social Justice Research 2005, 18:305-333. doi: 10.1007/s11211-005-6827-z.
26. Katz I., Hass R.G. Racial ambivalence and American value conflict: Correlational and priming studies of dual cognitive structures. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 1988, 55:893-905.
27. Kay A.C., Gaucher D., McGregor I., Nash K. Religious belief as compensatory control. Personality and Social Psychology Review 2010, 14:37-48. doi: 10.1177/1088868309353750.
28. Kay A.C., Gaucher D., Napier J.L., Callan M.J., Laurin K. God and the government: Testing a compensatory control mechanism for the support of external systems. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 2008, 95:18-35. doi: 10.1037/0022-3514.95.1.18.
29. Kay A.C., Jost J.T., Young S. Victim derogation and victim enhancement as alternate routes to system justification. Psychological Science 2005, 16:240-246. doi: 10.1111/j.0956-7976.2005.00810.x.
30. Kay A.C., Moscovitch D.A., Laurin K. Randomness, attributions of arousal, and belief in God. Psychological Science 2010, 21:216-218. doi: 10.1177/0956797609357750.
31. Kay A.C., Whitson J.A., Gaucher D., Galinksy A.D. Compensatory control: Achieving order through the mind, our institutions, and the heavens. Current Directions in Psychological Science 2009, 18:264-268. doi: 10.1111/j.1467-8721.2009.01649.x.
32. Kelly G.A. The psychology of personal constructs 1955, Norton, New York, NY.
33. Kim H., Markus H.R. Deviance or uniqueness, harmony or conformity? A cultural analysis. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 1999, 77:785-800. doi: 10.1037/0022-3514.77.4.785.
34. Kruglanski A.W. Lay epistemics and human knowledge: Cognitive and motivational bases 1989, Plenum Press, New York, NY.
35. Kruglanski A.W., Webster D.M. Motivated closing of the mind: "seizing" and "freezing." Psychological Review 1996, 103:263-283. doi: 10.1037/0033-295X.103.2.263.
36. Landau M.J., Greenberg J., Solomon S., Pyszczynski T., Martens A. Windows into nothingness: Terror management, meaninglessness, and negative reactions to modern art. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 2006, 90:879-892. doi: 10.1037/0022-3514.90.6.879.
37. Landau M.J., Johns M., Greenberg J., Pyszczynski T., Martens A., Goldenberg J.L., Solomon S. A function of form: Terror management and structuring the social world. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 2004, 87:190-210. doi: 10.1037/0022-3514.87.2.190.
38. Laurin K., Kay A.C., Moscovitch D.A. On the belief in God: Towards an understanding of the emotional substrates of compensatory control. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 2008, 44:1559-1562. doi: 10.1016/j.jesp.2008.07.007.
39. Laurin K., Shepherd S., Kay A.C. Restricted emigration, system inescapability, and defense of the status quo: System-justifying consequences of restricted exit opportunities. Psychological Science 2010, 21:1075-1082.
40. Lerner M.J. The belief in a just world: A fundamental delusion 1980, Plenum Press, New York, NY.
41. MacKinnon D.P., Lockwood C.M., Hoffman J.M., West S.G., Sheets V. A comparison of methods to test mediation and other intervening variable effects. Psychological Methods 2002, 7:83-104.
42. MacKinnon D.P., Lockwood C.M., Williams J. Confidence limits for the indirect effect: Distribution of the product and resampling methods. Multivariate Behavioural Research 2004, 39:99-128.
43. McGregor I., Haji R., Nash K.A., Teper R. Religious zeal and the uncertain self. Basic and Applied Social Psychology 2008, 30:183-188.
44. McGregor I., Zanna M.P., Holmes J.G., Spencer S.J. Compensatory conviction in the face of personal uncertainty: Going to extremes and being oneself. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 2001, 80:472-488.
45. Nail P.R., McGregor I. Conservative shift among liberals and conservatives following 9/11/01. Social Justice Research 2009, 22:231-240.
46. Norris P., Inglehart R. Sacred and secular: Religion and politics worldwide 2004, Cambridge University Press, New York, NY.
47. Pennebaker J.W., Stone L.D. Translating traumatic experiences into language: Implications for child abuse and long-term health. From child sexual abuse to adult sexual risk: Trauma, revictimization, and intervention 2004, 201-216. American Psychological Association, Washington, DC. L.J. Koenig, L.S. Doll, A. O'Leary, W. Pequegnat (Eds.).
48. Pargament K.I. The psychology of religion and coping: Theory, research, practice 1997, Guilford Press, New York, NY.
49. Park C.L. Religion as a meaning-making framework in coping with life stress. Journal of Social Issues 2005, 61:707-729.
50. Pepitone A., Saffiotti L. The selectivity of nonmaterial beliefs in interpreting life events. European Journal of Social Psychology 1997, 27:23-35.
51. Perkins C.C. An analysis of the concept of reinforcement. Psychological Review 1968, 75:155-172.
52. Porter M.E., Schwab K. The Global Competitiveness Report 2008-2009 2008, World Economic Forum, Geneva, Switzerland.
53. Preacher K.J., Hayes A.F. SPSS and SAS procedures for estimating indirect effects in simple mediation models. Behavior Research Methods, Instruments & Computers 2004, 36:717-731.
54. Presson P.K., Benassi V.A. Illusion of control: A metaanalytic review. Journal of Social Behavior and Personality 1996, 11:493-510.
55. Rodin J., Rennert K., Solomon S.K. Intrinsic motivation for control: Fact or fiction. Advances in environmental psychology: Vol. 2. Applications of personal control 1980, 131-151. Erlbaum, Hillsdale, NJ. A. Baum, J.E. Singer (Eds.).
56. Rothbaum R., Weisz J.R., Snyder S.S. Changing the world and changing the self: A two-process model of perceived control. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 1982, 42:5-37.
57. Sales S.M. Economic threat as a determinant of conversion rates in authoritarian and nonauthoritarian churches. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 1972, 23:420-428.
58. Schwartz B. Self-determination: The tyranny of freedom. American Psychologist 2000, 55:79-88.
59. Seligman M.E.P. Helplessness: On depression, development and death 1975, Freeman, San Francisco, CA.
60. Seligman M.E.P. Learned helplessness and depression in animals and men 1976, General Learning Press, Morristown, NJ.
61. Sethis, S., & Lepper, M. R. (1998). Rethinking the role of choice in intrinsic motivation: A cultural perspective. Unpublished manuscript, Stanford University.
62. Shepherd, S., Kay, A. C., & Landau, M. J. (2010). Evidence for the specificity of motive systems in worldview defense: Distinguishing compensatory control from uncertainty management and terror management processes. Unpublished manuscript, University of Waterloo, Waterloo, Ontario, Canada.
63. Shrout P.E., Bolger N. Mediation in experimental and nonexperimental studies: New procedures and recommendations. Psychological Methods 2002, 7:422-445.
64. Skinner E.A. Perceived control, motivation, and coping 1995, Sage, Thousand Oaks, CA.
65. Steele C.M. The psychology of self-affirmation: Sustaining the integrity of the self. Advances in experimental social psychology 1988, 21:261-302. Academic Press, San Diego, CA. L. Berkowitz (Ed.).
66. Stotland E., Blumenthal A.L. The reduction of anxiety as a result of the expectation of making a choice. Canadian Journal of Psychology 1964, 18:139-145.
67. Sullivan D., Landau M.J., Rothschild Z. An existential function of enemyship: Evidence that people attribute influence to personal and political enemies to compensate for threats to control. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 2010, 98:434-449.
68. Tesser A. On the plasticity of self-defense. Current Directions in Psychological Science 2001, 10:66-69.
69. Tesser A., Crepaz N., Beach S.R.H., Cornell D., Collins J.C. Confluence of self-esteem regulation mechanisms: On integrating the self-zoo. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 2000, 26:1476-1489.
70. Weisz J.R., Rothbaum F.M., Blackburn T.C. Standing out and standing in: The psychology of control in America and Japan. American Psychologist 1984, 39:955-969.
71. White R. Motivation reconsidered: The concept of competence. Psychological Review 1959, 66:297-330.
72. Whitson J.A., Galinsky A.D. Lacking control increases illusory pattern perception. Science 2008, October 3, 322:115-117. 268.
73. Wilson T.D., Centerbar D.B., Kermer D.A., Gilbert D.T. The pleasures of uncertainty: Prolonging positive moods in ways people do not anticipate. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 2005, 88:5-21.
74. Wohl M.J.A., Enzle M.E. The effects of near wins and near losses on losses on self-perceived personal luck and subsequent gambling behavior. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 2003, 39:184-191.