Chapter 1

Ways of Studying the Psychology of Religion

and Spirituality
Ralph W. Hood, Jr.

Abstract Psychology is far from a unified discipline. There are strongly differing
opinions on how it is to be defined. One consequence of this diversity is methodological pluralism. Methodological pluralism includes the descriptive fact that different
schools of psychology favor different research methods as well as the philosophical position that psychology cannot and ought not be defined in terms of a single
methodology assumed appropriate for all investigations. Thus, while some would
argue for the experimental method combined with the quantitative assessment of
change in measured variables as the gold standard for research in religion and
spirituality, this position must be balanced by a consideration of a wide variety of
other methods used in the study of religion and spirituality. These include quasiexperimental methods when participants cannot be randomly assigned to treatment
groups and ethnographic and participant observation often focused on qualitative
assessments. The psychological study of religion and spirituality has always been
identified with questionnaires and scales designed to measure particular phenomena
of interest. Phenomenological studies are of descriptive value in their own right,
as well as providing means to operationalize and measure reports of religious and
spiritual experiences. Advances in neurophysiological imaging techniques are providing a rich database for correlating brain states with the report of religious and
spiritual experiences. Finally, survey research allows the placing of religious and
spiritual phenomena within a normative cultural context. A commitment to methodological pluralism assures that both religion and spirituality can be studied in ways
appropriate to the richness and diversity that these terms connate.
The psychology of religion has since its inception struggled with what are the appropriate methods for studying religion and spirituality. As we shall see the questions of
methods remain controversial among contemporary psychologists. However, rather
than applaud a single method our purpose in this chapter will be to explore the
range of methods available to psychologists who study religion and spirituality. Our
presentation of various methods necessarily focuses on American psychology of
R.W. Hood, Jr. (B)
Department of Psychology, University of Tennessee, Chattanooga, TN 37403, USA
e-mail: Ralph-Hood@utc.edu
M. de Souza et al. (eds.), International Handbook of Education for Spirituality,
Care and Wellbeing, International Handbooks of Religion and Education 3,
C Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2009
DOI 10.1007/978-1-4020-9018-9 2, 

15

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R.W. Hood

religion dominated until recently by studies of largely Protestant college students

(Gorsuch, 1988). While this is unfortunate, it characterizes, as we shall soon discuss, the American turn to experimental methods as the gold standard by which
to judge psychological research as well as the American reliance upon undergraduate psychology students for their dominant subject pools (Sears, 1986). Thus
we will provide some critical discussion of mainstream American psychologys
adaptation of the experimental method as exemplars of scientific psychology and
American psychologys compromise appeal to quasi-experimental methods as the
ideal method for the psychology of religion. We do not accept this claim and argue
for the expansion of methods within the psychology of religion. Furthermore, we
will note that the methods used in the psychology of religion are additive in that
older methods such as correlation and measurement are not abandoned but rather
used alongside new ones. We accept a variety of methods, only some of which are
quantitative. Qualitative methods add insights into the psychology of religion that
quantitative methods miss. Furthermore, we applaud the use of mixed methods in
the study of religion and spirituality where both quantitative and qualitative methods
are used simultaneously in a single study (Kohls, Hack, & Walach, 2008).
In one of the earliest reviews of the psychology of religion, Dittes (1969) identified four conceptual options available to those who study the psychology of religion
and spirituality. Each has methodological implications.
Two of Dittes options are reductionistic. The first is the claim that the only
variables operating in religion are the same that operate in mainstream psychology.
Therefore the psychology of religion need have no unique methodologies as its subject matter is not unique. The second option is that, while the variables operating in
religion are not unique, they may be more salient in religious contexts and thus their
effect is greater within rather than outside religion. However, they remain purely
psychological variables.
The other two of Dittes conceptual options suggest something is unique about
religion and thus it may need methods that mainstream psychology ignores. The
least controversial of these is that established psychological variables uniquely interact in religious contexts and thus there is a unique contribution from the interaction
of psychological with religious variables to the total variance explained. The final
option is that there are unique variables operating in religion that either do not
operate in or are ignored by mainstream psychologists. We will confront Dittes
various conceptual options as we gradually explore methods in terms of our additive
comments above.

Method 1: Personal Documents and Questionnaires

Many of the techniques employed today were first used by the founding fathers of
our discipline. William James (1902/1985) focused on personal documents describing the experiences of individuals who felt themselves to be in the presence of the
divine. His focus on the varieties of religious experience left open all of Dittes four
options. He also relied on questionnaires employed by Edward Starbuck in his study
of the growth of religious consciousness (Starbuck, 1899). The method is simply to

Ways of Studying the Psychology of Religion and Spirituality

17

ask persons to describe their religious experiences, either in an open-ended fashion

or by responding to specific questionnaire items. Perhaps most congruent with the
James and Starbuck tradition of the use of personal documents to understand religious experience has been the work associated with what was originally known as
the Religious Experience Research Unit of Manchester College, Oxford University.
This unit continues as the Alister Hardy Religious Experience Research Centre at
the University of Wales, Lampeter. Alister Hardy achieved scientific accolades as a
renowned zoologist. Yet his lifelong interest in religious experience led him upon
retirement from his career in zoology to form a research unit in 1969 devoted to the
collection and classification of religious experiences, for which he was awarded the
Templeton Prize for research in religion. Hardys basic procedure, stemming from
his zoological training, was to solicit voluntary reports of religious experiences and
to attempt to classify them into their natural types. Typically these reports were
solicited via requests in newspapers, as well as newsletters distributed to various
groups, mostly in the United Kingdom. Requests were not simply for the more
extreme and intense types of experiences favored by James, but for the more temperate variety of religious experiences as well. Often individuals simply submitted
experience unsolicited. In The spiritual nature of man, Hardy (1979) published an
extensive classification of the major defining characteristics of these experiences
from an initial pool of 3,000 experiences. Here the method is to impose classifications upon a set of data. A criticism often applied to classifications concerns the lack
of any systematic metric properties.
Hardys major classifications included sensory or quasi-sensory experience associated with vision, hearing, and touch; less frequent, but still fairly common, were
reports of paranormal experiences. Most common were cognitive and affective
episodes, such as a sense of presence or feelings of peace (Hardy, 1979). Not surprisingly, other surveys (discussed as Method 2 further) of a more scientific nature,
such as Greeleys (1975) survey of 1,467 people, show some overlaps with Hardys
classifications, especially with the cognitive and affective elements but also reveal
many differences. It seems that there is little agreement about exactly what might
constitute the common characteristics of religious experience. Perhaps the term is
simply too broad for agreement to be expected across diverse samples and investigators. The focus, then, must be on not simply religious experience, but the varieties of
experience that are interpreted as religious. What makes an experience religious is
clearly not the discrete, isolated components that can be identified in any experience
as James long ago noted. Thus when persons are asked to describe their religious
or spiritual experiences, the widest possible range of experiences are obtained. It
is up to the psychologist to impose some order and classification on the diverse
material.

Method 2: Survey Research

More sociologically oriented psychologists have used survey methods to determine
the frequency and correlates of various types of spiritual and religious experiences.
For instance, it has been over 40 years since Glock and Stark sampled churches in

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R.W. Hood

the greater San Francisco area using this question, Have you ever as an adult had
the feeling that you were somehow in the presence of God? (Glock & Stark, 1965,
p. 157, Table 8-1). With a sample size of just under 3,000 respondents (2,871), 72%
answered yes. Not surprisingly, the majority were religiously committed persons.
However, Vernon (1968) demonstrated that even among those answering none in
response to their religious identification, 25% answered yes to the Glock and Stark
question. More recently, Tamminen (1991) in a longitudinal study of Scandinavian
youth modified the Glock and Stark question slightly by omitting the phrase as an
adult, Tamminen asked, Have you at times felt that God is particularly close to
you. He found a steady decline in the percentage of students reporting experiences
of nearness to God by grade level (and hence age).
The most frequently used survey question is associated with the General Social
Survey (GSS) of the National Opinion Research Center. The GSS is a series of
independent cross-sectional probability samples of persons in the continental United
States, living in non-institutional homes, who are 18 years of age and Englishspeaking. The question most typically used is Have your ever felt as though you
were close to a powerful spiritual force that seemed to lift you out of yourself?
as first asked by Greeley (1974). The question has been asked to persons in Great
Britain by Hay and Morisy (1978) with a 36% affirmative response. It was found
that overall, in a GSS sample of 1,468, 35% of the respondents answered yes to
this question (Davis & Smith, 1994).
Yamane and Polzer (1994) analyzed all affirmative responses from the GSS to the
Greeley question in the years 1983, 1984, 1988, and 1989. A total of 5,420 individuals were included in their review. Using an ordinal scale where respondents who
answered affirmatively could select from three optionsonce or twice, several
times, or oftenyielded a range from 0 (negative response) to 3 (often). Using
this four-point range across all individuals who responded to the Greeley question
yielded a mean score of 0.79 (SD = 0.89). Converting this to a percentage of yes
as a nominal category, regardless of frequency, yielded 2,183 affirmative responses,
or an overall affirmative response of 40% of the total sample who reported ever
having had the experience. Independent assessment of affirmative responses for
each year suggested a slight but steady decline. The figures were 39% for 1983
and 1984 combined (n = 3, 072), 31% for 1988 (n = 1, 481), and 31% for
1989 (n = 936).
The major consistent findings based on survey studies can be easily summarized
in terms of Dittes first two conceptual options. Women report more religious and
spiritual experiences than men; the experiences tend to be age-related, increasing
with age; they are characteristic of educated and affluent people; and they are more
likely to be associated with indices of psychological health and wellbeing than with
those of pathology or social dysfunction. Finally, Religious and spiritual experiences
are common and reported by at least one-third of the populations in the United
States, the United Kingdom, and Australia. The focus on belief ignores any actual
ontological claims, so that belief in God as well as parapsychology and contact with
the dead is found to be common. Such issues are best explored by phenomenological
methods discussed later in this chapter.

Ways of Studying the Psychology of Religion and Spirituality

19

Method 3: Scales, Measurement, and Correlation

The diversity of experiences reported in surveys and open-ended questionnaires
can be ordered by the use of scales that operationalize a particular researchers
definition of religious and/or spiritual experiences. As opposed to survey research
that typically uses one or a very limited number of religious questions, scales can
have many items. Combined with exploratory factor analysis, items can be clustered together metrically leading to various sub-scales. These factored scales can be
correlated with other scales to identify relationships. Most religious variables are
multidimensional. One example is the Religious Orientation Scale first devised by
Allport and Ross (1967) and perhaps the widest used scale in the psychology of
religion (Donahue, 1985; Kirkpatrick & Hood, 1990).
However, Gorsuch (1984) noted how measurement via the use of scales was a
mixed blessing for the psychology of religion. It emerged in the 1960s as American
psychologists began to return to an interest in religion. On one hand, it proved to
be as easy to measure religious and spiritual constructs as any other psychological constructs. However, on the other hand, a focus on measurement could inhibit
systematic programs of research involving other than correlational methods. Hill
and Hood (1999) have collected the most commonly used measures of religion and
to a lesser extent of spirituality. Readily available are scales to measure religious
belief and practices, religious attitudes, religious coping and problem solving, and
concepts of God, to mention only a few. The important point here is that one ought
to consult existing measures before constructing new ones. Likewise, once religious
or spiritual measures are identified, they can be correlated with a wide variety of
existing measures in mainstream psychology. Most of this research stays within the
first two conceptual options noted by Dittes.

Method 4: Clinical Psychoanalysis and Object Relations

The measurement of God concepts has been a concern of the empirical psychology
of religion with its re-emergence in the 1960s. This is relevant to the second wave
in the study of religion after the founding fathers. Here the influence was from
psychoanalysis with the imposition of its clinical methods and a focus on unconscious processes. Few psychoanalysts remained silent or neutral on the subject of
religion. Thus, while academic psychology remained largely quiet on religion and
spirituality after the founding fathers interest, psychoanalysts explored it fully with
their own methods. They ranged from Freuds well-known reductionist treatment of
religion, placing the psychoanalytic study of religion within Dittes first two conceptual options (Hood, 1992) to Jungs treatment of religion squarely within Dittes
options 3 and 4 (Halligan, 1995). The methods employed by psychoanalysts and
analysts have seldom been championed by academic psychologists, but the focus on
therapeutic transformation as a criterion of success does allow for some assessment
that these are legitimate human sciences.

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R.W. Hood

The second generation of psychoanalysts moved from purely Oedipal considerations to early infant/human interactions, including those with the mother. Object
relation theorists have been accused by some as being apologists for religion (BeitHallahmi, 1995). Most are clearly within Dittes third and fourth conceptual options
and their methods are not unrelated to methods discussed latter in this chapter. While
the methods of object relation theorists stay within the psychoanalytic hermeneutics
of therapeutic transformation, they have produced some contemporary classics in
the psychology of religion (Pruyser, 1976; Rizutto, 1979).

Interlude: The Question of the Experiment

as Privileged Method
There have been only two reviews of the psychology of religion in the highly
influential Annual review of psychology series. The first identified and ushered in
measurement and correlation as the dominant paradigm in the academic psychology
of religion (Gorsuch, 1988). Fifteen years later, the second review of the psychology
of religion in the Annual review of psychology by Emmons and Paloutzian (2003)
focused on experimental, not correlational research. This shift marked in some eyes
the heeding of Batsons plea from over a quarter of a century earlier for achieving respect for the psychology of religion (Batson, 1977, 1979). His plea went
largely unheard as American psychology of religion was dominated by measurement and correlational research. Achieving respect for the psychology of religion
would require courting mainstream methodologies of American psychology. More
precisely, a single methodology was then, and for many still is, privileged: the
experimental method. Batsons argument was that, if true experimental research
was impossible (largely due to violating the requirement of random assignment of
subjects), then quasi-experimental research would at least assure the psychology of
religion a silver medal and respect in mainstream journals.
In the decade prior to Gorsuchs (1988) identification of a measurement paradigm,
Capps, Ransohoff, and Rambo (1976) noted that, out of a total of almost 2,800
articles in the psychology of religion to that date, only 150 were empirical studies.
Of these 90% were correlational. Dittes (1985)noted the same dominance of correlational studies in the only review chapter on the psychology of religion to appear in
the Handbook of social psychology (which has gone through four editions with only
the second carrying a chapter on the psychology of religion). This is evidence for the
dominance of Gorsuchs (1984) measurement paradigm that some have criticized
(Batson, 1977, 1979).
The Emmons and Paluotzian review does not abandon the correlational paradigm
nor the measurement paradigm but simply embeds correlational and measurement
studies in research methods exhibiting the characteristic of mainstream psychology.
Persons trained in experimental research (typically social or personality psychologist) do much of the current empirical research in the American psychology of
religion. Not surprisingly then, the theme that dominates the contemporary empirical psychology of religion is for research modeled after what is acceptable to the

Ways of Studying the Psychology of Religion and Spirituality

21

flagship journal in American social psychology, The Journal of Personality and

Social Psychology (JPSP).
Emmons and Paloutzian call for a new multilevel interdisciplinary paradigm
to replace the measurement paradigm (2003, p. 395 emphasis in original). This
multilevel interdisciplinary paradigm is accompanied by the assertion of the value
of using data at multiple levels of analysis as well as the value of nonreductive assumptions regarding the nature of religious and spiritual phenomena.
This suggests the possibility of all levels of Dittes conceptual options, depending on what and how variables are selected and measured. The call for this new
paradigm is echoed again in the Handbook of the psychology of religion and
spirituality (Park & Paloutzian, 2003).
The history of interdisciplinary paradigms in American psychology suggests
that, in terms of methodology, experimental paradigms trump all others. Thus
interdisciplinary efforts with a plurality of methods have seldom succeeded. Jones
reminds us that Harvards Department of Social Relations established in 1946 as
an interdisciplinary department (clinical psychology, cultural anthropology, sociology, and social psychology) is now but a concession to nostalgia (Jones,
1998, p. 4). Other interdisciplinary efforts such as the University of Michigans
Institute for Social Research, as Jones also reminds us, has more to do with funding and space than intellectual convergence (1998, p. 4). Stryker (1977) has
identified two social psychologies, psychological social psychology (PSP) emphasizing quantitative experimental methods and sociological social psychology (SSP)
emphasizing qualitative methods such as symbolic interactionism and ethnomethodology. House (1977) identifies a third SSP that is quantitative but focused on data
derived from survey studies rather than experimentation. This would make for four
social psychologies if historical studies are also acknowledged (Gergen, 1973).
Efforts to create a specifically interdisciplinary social psychology have as poor
history as the interdisciplinary efforts noted above. In one of the most widely
adopted social psychology textbooks of the 1960s, a team comprising a psychologist (Paul F. Secord) and a sociologist (Carl W. Backman) tried to create an
interdisciplinary social psychology noting that social psychology can no longer
be adequately surveyed by a person trained in only one of its parent disciplines
(Secord & Backman, 1964, p. vii). However, both Annual Reviews discussed above
attest to the fact that even within social psychology the literatures of one social psychology seldom reference the other. Furthermore, it is worth noting that when the
criticisms of laboratory-based research were most intense by sociologically oriented
social psychologists (in the decades of the 1960s and 1970s), the percent of experimental studies in JPSP increased (Moghadam, Taylor, & Wright, 1993, p. 26). Thus,
American psychological social psychology has become a unitary subdiscipline of
psychology with a singular ideal methodology, the laboratory experiment. This has
occurred despite telling conceptual criticisms of the limits of a laboratory-based
psychology and the philosophical assumptions that support it (Belzen & Hood,
2006; Hood & Belzen, 2005). In reviewing the history of social psychology, Gordon
W. Allport noted that it had become a subdiscipline of general psychology, just as
many today proclaim the psychology of religion to be a subdiscipline of psychology.

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R.W. Hood

However, Allport noted that by defining the laboratory-based experiment as the

gold standard what we identify as psychological social psychology has the obvious disadvantage that it can seldom generalize beyond the laboratory setting. In
Allports words:
Even if the experiment is successfully repeated there is no proof that the discovery has wider
validity. It is for this reason that some current investigations seem to end up in elegantly
polished triviality snippets of empiricism, but nothing more (Allport, 1985, p. 68).

Allport, widely acknowledged as one of the major early academic psychologists

of religion did not attempt to apply the experimental method to the psychology of
religion.

Method 5: The Experimental Paradigm

as an Unachievable Ideal
It may seem ironic that we include here as our fifth method a negative exemplar.
Psychologically oriented social psychologists applaud the experiment as the single best source of legitimate scientific data. Aronson, Wilson, and Brewer (1998,
pp. 118124) identify four steps to the true experiment: (1) setting the stage for
the experiment, (2) constructing an independent variable, (3) measuring the dependent variable, and (4) planning the post-experimental follow-up. Included in the
follow-up is a concern that the cover story of the experiment was accepted by the
participant since many experiments utilize deception. Deception, while guided by
APA ethical codes and University IRB boards, nevertheless raises serious ethical
issues (Kelman, 1967, 1968). Laboratory social psychology is almost totally deception based, and this as we will note became a concern in laboratory-based dissonance
research. When deception is extended to field work it arguably raises even more
serious ethical issues. Richardson (1991) has noted this with respect to a classic
field study in the psychology of religion, When prophecy fails (Festinger, Riecken,
& Schachter, 1956), and Hood (1995) has raised similar concerns with Dennis
Covingtons Salvation on sand mountain (Covington, 1995) dealing with deceptive participatory research with the contemporary serpent handlers of Appalachia.
Likewise, Jones (1998) noted that ethical concerns with increasingly deceptive laboratory experiments attempting to induce cognitive dissonance was a factor in the
eventual waning of interest in laboratory studies. Ironically, Festinger acknowledged
that the type of laboratory research that he and his colleagues did in the good old
days would be unlikely to be allowed today (Festinger, 1999, p. 384). As he succinctly states the case, I dont know how we would have gotten anything through
ethics committees (Festinger, 1999, pp. 384385).

Method 6: Quasi-Experimental Studies

Batson in seeking respect for the psychology of religion noted, Although an experimental psychology of religion does not exist; one seems badly needed (Batson,
1977, p. 41). However, he recognized that a true experimental design requires

Ways of Studying the Psychology of Religion and Spirituality

23

random assignment of participants to experimental and control conditions. This is

not possible using religious variables, if for no other than ethical reasons. However,
this is not unique to the psychology of religion. In his presidential address to the
APA, Campbell (1975) noted that in some areas we are unable to experiment
(p. 1193). However, if one is precluded from random assignment of participants
to groups, one can still do quasi-experimental designs (Campbell & Stanley, 1966;
Deconchy, 1985). Quasi-experimental designs can be done both in the laboratory
and the field, fulfilling most of the requirements of internal validity regarded as the
sine qua non of good experimental research (Aronson et al., 1998, p. 129). Criticisms that experimental and quasi-experimental designs often lack external validity
(the ability to generalize to the non-experimental settings) are no longer prominent among psychologically oriented social psychologists, but are often raised by
sociologically oriented social psychologists whose research occurs in a real world
context. As laboratory-oriented experiments confront realism there is a radical
shift in the meaning of the term.
Aronson and his colleagues have taken the lead in identifying three basic kinds
of realism, all of which we subsume under the term contextual realism: mundane,
experimental, and psychological realism. Mundane realism is the extent to which the
experimental task is similar to the one that occurs in everyday life, while experimental realism is the extent to which participants take the experiment seriously (Aronson
& Carlsmith, 1968). Psychological realism is the extent to which the processes that
occur in the experimental situation are the same as those that occur in everyday
life (Aronson, Wilson, & Akert, 1994). Contextual realism is equally relevant to
both experimental and quasi-experimental designs. These realisms operate in quasiexperimental designs in research on the psychology of religion. For those with a
more positivistic orientation to psychology they provide the best evidential base
for establishing causal determinants of religious phenomenon viewed as dependent
variables. While there are numerous examples of quasi-experimental research in the
psychology of religion (Hood, Hill, & Spilka, 2009), we will focus on one area
where the research is now state of the art and yet the area of investigation is not
without controversy: the use of chemicals to facilitate mystical experience.
The first and most widely cited study of the uses of entheogens to facilitate mystical experience is a doctoral dissertation by Pahnke (1966). It has become widely
known as the Good Friday experiment as 20 graduate students at Andover-Newton
Theological Seminary met to hear a Good Friday service after they had been given
either psilocybin (a known entheogen) or a placebo control (nicotinic acid). Participants meet in groups of four, with two experimental and two controls, all matched
for compatibility. Each group had two leaders, one who had been given psilocybin.
Immediately after the service and 6 months later the participants were assessed on a
questionnaire that included all of Staces common core criteria of mysticism. Results
were impressive in that the experimental participants scored high on all of Staces
common core criteria while the controls did not.
In what is also a widely quoted study, Doblin (1991) followed the adventures
of the original Good Friday participants. He was able to locate and interview nine
of the participants in original experimental group and seven of the participants in
the original control group. He also administered Pahnkes original questionnaire,

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R.W. Hood

including Staces common core criteria of mysticism. In most cases, comparison

of Doblins result with both of Pahnkes results (immediately after the service
and 6 months later) reported that participants in the experimental group showed
increases on most of Staces common core criteria of mysticism after almost a quarter of a century. Despite serious critiques of the Good Friday study (Doblin, 1991;
Nichols & Chemel, 2006, pp. 1011), it has until recently been the most significant
study attempting to facilitate mystical experience in a religious setting.
The benchmark study in the tradition of the Good Friday experiment is the
recent study by Griffiths, Richards, McCann, and Jesse (2006). They replicated
Pahnkes original experiment with individual rather than groups sessions, using a
more rigorous experimental control, a more appropriate placebo (methylphenidate
hydrochloride). The double blind study was effective at two levels: first, the double
blind was not broken in what is a very sophisticated between group crossover design
that involved two or three 8-h drug sessions conducted at 2-month intervals. While
the complexity of the research design need not concern us here, suffice it to say
that of 30 adult volunteers, half received either the entheogen first, followed by
the placebo control; half the placebo control first, followed by the entheogen. Six
additional volunteers received the placebo in the first two sessions and unblinded
psilocybin in the third session. This was to obscure the study design and protect
the double blind. Unlike the Good Friday experiment, the double blind in this John
Hopkins study was successful (Griffiths et al., 2006, p. 274).
While the Good Friday participants took psilocybin in a specifically religious setting, volunteers in the John Hopkins study had all session in an aesthetically pleasant
living room like setting. While the volunteers had spiritual interests the setting itself
did not contain religious artifacts or cues. All session were monitored by an experienced male guide who had extensive experience with entheogens. However, unlike
the Good Friday experiment, the experienced male guide nor a companion female
guide took psilocybin while serving as guides. Second, numerous measures and
observations were involved in this study, including Pahnkes original questionnaire
and Hoods Mysticism Scale. Results indicated that the experimental controls had
higher mysticism scores than the active placebo controls. Further, in a follow-up
study, only scores as measured by Hoods M-Scale predicted meaningfulness of the
experience, judged by all experimentals as to be one of, if not, the most significant
experience in their life (Griffiths, Richards, Johnson, McCann, & Jesse, 2008).

Method 7: Neurophysiological Measures

Closely related to entheogens being used to facilitate religious experience are studies
employing new technologies to identify neurological processes that occur during
spiritual and religious experiences. Many of these are advancements over previous nuerophysiological methods. All neurophysiological studies essentially use the
older correlational paradigm, but correlate a given experiential state with ongoing
neurological processes. Among the functional neuroimaging techniques are single
photon emission tomography (SPECT), positive emission tomography (PET), and

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25

functional magnetic resonance (fMRI). These procedures vary in how they assess
glucose and oxygen consumption in the brain. What is crucial is that these techniques are relatively non-invasive and can allow researchers to determine which
areas of the brain are active when individuals are in various spiritual or religious
states. The correlation of brain activity with specific religious and spiritual states is
best viewed as merely correlational, not causal (Azari, 2006, pp. 3435). Functional
magnetic imaging can be used in quasi-experimental studies to facilitate religious
and spiritual experiences by activating relevant brain areas thought to be involved
in such experiences (see McNamara, 2006, for reviews). As with our discussion of
research employing entheogens, research employing neuroimaging techniques indicates that psychology of religion can use quasi-experimental methods and advanced
technologies to develop research programs in the psychology of religion and spirituality that are as rigorous as any in mainstream psychology. However, there are voices
cautioning against this as an ideal or preferred method. Hood & Belzen (2005) have
provided and suggested yet another paradigm for the psychology of religion, one
that is hermeneutically based. Under this broad umbrella we can cite several other
methods used in studying religion and spirituality.

Method 8: Ethnography, Participant Observation

and Field Research
While there are various approaches to field and participant observation research in
the psychology of religion we can note one major distinction. Field research occurs
in a natural as opposed to a laboratory setting. The difference does not, however,
mean that measurement or quasi-experimental studies cannot occur in these settings.
For instance, in two separate studies Hood (1977, 1978) measured anticipatory set
stress and assessed actual setting stress in a program that required students to spend
a week in various activities from canoeing to a night alone without shelter other than
a tarp. In addition, since on some days it stormed and other it did not, Hood was able
to use this naturally occurring difference to test variations in setting stress that were
planned (canoe versus solo night alone) and simply occurred (solo during storm
versus solo without storm). The thesis that setting/set stress incongruities facilitates
mystical experience was supported. Mystical experience was measured after each
activity in the natural setting.
Ethnography overlaps considerably with participant observation research. Ethnographers are more committed to thick descriptions of phenomena from many
points of view of the various participants. An example is Polomas and Hoods
4-year study of an emerging Pentecostal church dealing with the poor in the inner
city of a major American city in the deep south (Poloma & Hood, 1908). Similar
to field and ethnographic research is participant observation research. This research
tends to be less detailed in its descriptions but like ethnography it occurs in a natural
setting. Both participant observation and ethnographic research differ from field
research in that the investigator participates and observes the participants he or she
is studying. Importantly, participant observation research often yields diametrically

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opposite results to laboratory-based research on the same topic. For instance, studies
of failed prophecy employing Festingers theory of cognitive dissonance are often
supported by laboratory-based studies, but not by participant observation studies
(Hood & Belzen, 2005).
Participant observation and ethnographic studies are especially useful when
investigators wish to understand rather than explain religious phenomena and practices. Recent examples in the psychology of religion are Belzens (1999) participant
observation research on the bevindelijken and Hood and Williamsons (2008)
study of the contemporary Christian serpent handlers of Appalachia.

Method 9: Phenomenological Research

Phenomenological research is another in the hermeneutical tradition broadly conceived. It seeks to describe the appearance of phenomena to participants. There
are variations in precisely how investigators utilize phenomenological methods, but
what is significant for the study of religion and spirituality is that judgments as
to the ontological status of objects experienced are not made. This has led to significant studies of phenomena long associated with spirituality such as near-death
experiences, out-of-body experiences, and psi or parapsychological experiences (see
Cardena, Lynn, & Krippner, 2000). The bracketing of ontological claims allows
psychologists to study the condition under which such experiences occur as well
as to describe their significance and meaning to those who have them. This has
led phenomenological researchers to identify set and setting effects that influence
the report of religious and spiritual experiences. Set effects include the state of
the participant just prior to the experience. The two most studied set effects are
mood and expectation. Setting effects refer to the location of the experience. Setting
effects can be separated into proximate and distal. Proximate setting includes the
immediate location and interpersonal environment where the experience occurs.
Distal setting expands to include the historical period and culture within which
experiences are encouraged or discouraged. Thus, phenomenological methods have
merged for some into cultural psychology which seeks to understand religious phenomena in their historical and cultural context (Belzen, 1999; Belzen & Hood, 2006;
Gergen, 1973).

Method 10: Confessional Research

As a final method of research in religion and spirituality, reference must be made
to what can be identified as confessional investigators. By confessional we identify
researchers who explicitly identify their own religious convictions as part of their
investigative process. Porpora (2006) has noted that a methodological agnosticism is
more adequate to the study of religious and spiritual phenomena than methodological atheism assumed by those who wish to restrict the social sciences to natural

Ways of Studying the Psychology of Religion and Spirituality

27

science methods. Agnosticism allows religious phenomena to reveal themselves,

perhaps more so to investigators sensitized to them by their own participatory
faith commitments. Examples including Polomas (2003) own acknowledge Pentecostal commitment and how it facilitated her participatory observation study of
the Toronto Blessing. Another example is provided by the confessional scholars of
mysticism who have used their own experiences to affirm that mystical experiences
occur and that, among what appear to be different descriptions of mystical experiences, an underlying commonality nevertheless exists (Barnard, 1997; Forman,
1999). Confessional methodologists applaud the value of returning psychology to
the researcher as a subject that characterized psychological research at its inception as a laboratory science (Danziger, 1994). They also tend to support Dittes
conceptual option asserting that there are religious variables that uniquely interact
with psychological variables such that religion cannot be explained by reductionistic
theories. They also assert that some religious variables are unique, such that part of
the sense of God may indeed come from God (Bowker, 1973; Porpora, 2006; Smith,
2003). The psychology of religion and spirituality in America is beginning to be
dominated by confessional research due to the influence of The John Templeton
Foundation. With over 1 billion dollars in assets this foundation gives out roughly
60 million dollars annually (www.templeton.org). The shifting to research in the
psychology of religion and spirituality by those with a confessional stance has been
criticized by Wulff (2003). However, the history of the psychology of religion in
America has always been driven by powerful interests and individuals who often
had either confessional or antagnostic stances toward religion (Hood, 2000). This
issue is not whether one takes a confessional stance or not, but simply the quality of
the research done.

Summary and Conclusion

We have far from exhausted the methods available to psychologist who study religion and spirituality. However, it is our position that the psychology of religion
is not well served by an appeal to a single method. The choice of a method is
dependent on what question is being asked. All four conceptual options proposed
by Dittes are relevant to the psychology of religion. If this is accepted, then our
appeal to an additive approach is more than appropriate. One can derive measurement from conceptual criteria established by other methods, such as Hood (1975)
did operationalizating of Staces (1961) phenomenologically derived common core
of mysticism or as Francis and Louden (2000) did with operationalizing Happolds
(1963) seven criteria of mysticism. In both cases, factor analyses confirmed the metric validity of the classifications. Thus phenomenology and measurement are used
to complement one another.
Especially relevant cases are when different methods lead to contradictory results
(Hood & Belzen, 2005). It may be that the mundane realism of laboratory settings
is too controlled to allow more complex interactions that characterize life outside
the laboratory. Hence, the precision and control of laboratory studies may be of

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R.W. Hood

limited usefulness when the questions are of a broader cultural concern, as they
often are in religious studies where field research and participant observation may
be more veridical to what is actually the case. The elicitation of mystical experiences
under quasi-experimental conditions still must be explored in terms of longitudinal
research designed to examine what people, who have these experiences, actually do
in terms of their own religious and spiritual development as they live their lives out
in particular cultural contexts.
Finally, if phenomenological methods bracket ontological claims, they serve to
remind us that religious and spiritual experiences are interesting in their own right
and deserving of a thick description. They are contrasted to confessional methods
primarily on the basis of ontological claims. Confessional methods provide the
intriguing option that what psychologists study may be real. The old sociological
dictum that things believed to be true are true in their consequences is perhaps but
a partial truth. Methodological agnosticism acknowledges that what confessional
methods claim might also be not simply consequentially true, but true.

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