Center for Psychology of Religion

The Centre for Psychology of Religion has as objective to study, from a psychological perspective (concepts, theories and methods), religion and religious phenomena as well as to promote interdisciplinarity between psychology and the human and social sciences of religion. The Centre was founded and directed by Antoine Vergote (1961-1987) and Jean-Marie Jaspard (1977-2001). It is currently directed by Vassilis Saroglou (2001-). Research carried out in the Centre (today and in the past) covers five main domains of psychology of religion:

personality psychology and religion
social and cross-cultural psychology of religion
psychology of religious development
clinical psychology of religion
interdisciplinarity with other sciences of religion

latest news


		> Subliminal religious priming activates submission and conformity According to many theoretical perspectives, religion is positively associated with submission and conformity. However, no study to date provided experimental evidence for this hypothesis. We did so in three experiments that relied on priming procedures. [25/06/2010 > more]


		> "Born" to be religious: Universal personality predispositions? Personality predispositions of religiousness seem to be universal: they are the same across religions, religious dimensions, countries, genders, ages, and cohorts. This was found in a recent meta-analysis of 71 studies from 19 countries [21/12/2009 > more]


		> Subtle prejudice/racism predicts hostility to the Islamic veil The wearing of the Islamic veil by Muslim women has become a source of tensions in Western European countries. In order to investigate majority members’ attitudes towards the veil, the present two studies, carried out in Belgium, integrated three lines of research. [31/03/2009 > more]


		> Positive emotions increase religion - spirituality A great variety of negative events and emotions can increase religion and spirituality. We argued though that positive events and emotions (that imply some self-transcendence; e.g. awe) can also increase religion and spirituality. Two experiments provided evidence in favor of this idea. [13/11/2008 > more]

| 18/04/2009 |

don't miss