Religious Attributions and Proximity of Influence: An Investigation of Direct Interventions and Distal Explanations.
Investigations into religious attributions have focused on attributer's immediate, proximal causes of events, paying little attention to underlying, distal explanations. In an effort to explain the relatively low incidence of religious attributions and further a new model of proximal-distal attribut...
| Published in: | Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion (Wiley-Blackwell) Vol. 39; no. 3; pp. 348 - 363 |
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| Main Authors: | , |
| Format: | Article |
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Wiley-Blackwell
Sep2000
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | View this record in EBSCOhost |
| fields | @attributes: recordID: 1 pdfLink: plink: https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=hlh&AN=3571436&site=ehost-live header: @attributes: shortDbName: hlh uiTerm: 3571436 longDbName: Humanities International Complete uiTag: AN controlInfo: bkinfo: jinfo: jid: 00218294 SSN jtl: Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion (Wiley-Blackwell) issn: 00218294 maglogo: Y pubinfo: dt: Sep2000 vid: 39 iid: 3 pid: 480 pub: Wiley-Blackwell artinfo: ui: 3571436 10.1111/0021-8294.00029 ppf: 348 ppct: 15 formats: fmt: – @attributes: type: T – @attributes: type: P size: 135KB tig: atl: Religious Attributions and Proximity of Influence: An Investigation of Direct Interventions and Distal Explanations. aug: au: Weeks, Matthew Lupfer, Michael B. affil: Professor of Psychology, Department of Psychology, University of Memphis. su: Religion Supernatural Personal computers Humanities Computer networks sug: subj: Religion Supernatural Personal computers Humanities Computer networks ab: Investigations into religious attributions have focused on attributer's immediate, proximal causes of events, paying little attention to underlying, distal explanations. In an effort to explain the relatively low incidence of religious attributions and further a new model of proximal-distal attributions, we present two experiments investigating the proximal and distal use of religious and nonreligious supernatural attributions. Participants in both studies were presented a series of sixteen vignettes that varied on several attribution-relevant dimensions. After reading each vignette, subjects gave an initial explanation for the event, and were then probed for any underlying explanations. Experiment 1 used an interview format that allowed participants maximum latitude when explaining the event's outcome. Consistent with our predictions, participants perceived God as having a greater distal than proximal influence, though this difference was not evident for attributions to Satan or nonreligious supernatural agents. Experiment 2 was performed via a microcomputer, with a participant's initial attributional response branching to a set of appropriate distal explanations. Overall, the results suggest that attributer's perceive God working through indirect influences rather than direct intervention, with this effect being moderated by the attributer's level of religiosity. This pattern was evident in the use of God as a distal explanation as well as in the distal explanations to proximal attributions to God. pubtype: Academic Journal doctype: Article src: R language: English refInfo: copyright: @attributes: flag: Y custom: Copyright of Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion (Wiley-Blackwell) is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites without the copyright holder's express written permission. Additionally, content may not be used with any artificial intelligence tools or machine learning technologies. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. item: Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion (Wiley-Blackwell) holder: Wiley-Blackwell dt: @attributes: year: 2000 holdings: @attributes: islocal: N |
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