Development and validation of the Dutch Questionnaire God Image : Effects of mental health and religious culture (original) (raw)
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The personal and normative image of God: the role of religious culture and mental health
Archive for the Psychology of Religion, 2007
This article focuses on the difference between the personal God image and the God image that people perceive as normative, that is to say, the God image they believe they should have according to religious culture. A sample of 544 Dutch respondents, of which 244 received psychotherapy, completed the Dutch Questionnaire of God Images (QGI). In general, there appeared to be a discrepancy between the personal and the normative God image. Whether discrepancies were experienced as conflictive was related to religious denomination and mental health. Conflictive feelings were associated with lower religious saliency and higher educational level. Moreover, they were associated with mental health per se and the interaction between mental health and denomination, with patients reporting more conflicts than normals except in the Roman Catholic and Orthodox-Reformed group, where patients and non-patients hardly differed in the experience of conflict.
God representations and aspects of psychological functioning A meta analysis
Cogent Psychology, 2019
Context: Results of meta-analyses show weak associations between religiosity and well-being, but are based on divergent definitions of religiosity. Objective: The aim of this meta-analysis was to examine the magnitude of the associations between God representations and aspects of psychological functioning. Based on object-relations and attachment theory, the study discerns six dimensions of God representations: Two positive affective God representations, three negative affective God representations, and God control. Associations with well-being and distress and with self-concept, relationships with others and neuroticism were examined. Methods: The meta-analysis was based on 123 samples out of 112 primary studies with 348 effect sizes from in total 29,963 adolescent and adult participants, with a vast majority adherent of a theistic religion. Results: The analyses, based on the random-effects model, yielded mostly medium effect sizes (r = .25 to r = .30) for the associations of positive God representations with wellbeing, and for the associations of two out of three negative God representations with distress. Associations of God representations with self-concept, relationships with others and neuroticism were of the same magnitude. Various moderator variables could not explain the relatively high amount of heterogeneity. The authors found no indications of publication bias. Conclusion: The observed effect sizes are significantly stronger than those generally found in meta-analyses of associations between religiousness and well-being/mental health. Results demonstrate the importance of focusing on God representations instead of on behavioral or rather global aspects of religiosity. Several implications with respect to assessment, clinical practice, and future research are discussed.
God image and mood in old age: Results from a community-based pilot study in the Netherlands
Mental Health, Religion & Culture, 2008
Religious involvement is frequently found to be associated with less depression in later life. The emotional aspects of religiousness, such as pertaining to the God-object relationship, have not received substantial attention in empirical research among older adults, and especially not in European samples. As part of a pilot study of the Longitudinal Aging Study Amsterdam, a small sample of older church-members (n ΒΌ 60), aged 68-93, filled out a questionnaire, including the Questionnaire God Image on feelings to God and perceptions of God, two of the God Image Scales designed by Lawrence on perceptions of God, the brief positive and negative religious coping scale designed by Pargament, and items on hopelessness, depressive symptoms, and feelings of guilt. Feelings of discontent towards God correlated positively with hopelessness, depressive symptoms, feelings of guilt, and also with depressive symptoms assessed 13 years earlier; these findings pertained to Protestant participants in particular. Most facets of God image, positive, critical, and about punishment reappraisals, were associated with more feelings of guilt. A possible explanation for the most pervasive finding, that feelings of discontent towards God are related to depressive symptoms, is that both, throughout life, remain rooted in insecure attachment styles.
Journal of Spirituality in Mental Health, 2018
For adherents of theistic religions, God representations are an important factor in explaining associations between religion/ spirituality and well-being/mental health. Because of limitations of self-report measures of God representations, we developed an implicit God representation instrument, the Apperception Test God Representations (ATGR) and examined its reliability and validity. Its scales could be scored reliably and were within a clinical sample associated more strongly than explicit God representation scales with the Global Assessment of Functioning scale. Compared to the ATGR scores of a nonclinical sample, the clinical sample had less complex, positive, and mature God representations, indicating discriminant validity.
An Item Response Theory Analysis of The Questionnaire of God Representations
The International Journal for the Psychology of Religion, 2016
The Dutch Questionnaire of God Representations (QGR) was investigated by means of item response theory (IRT) modeling in a clinical (n = 329) and a nonclinical sample (n = 792). Through a graded response model and IRT-based differential functioning techniques, detailed item-level analyses and information about measurement invariance between the clinical and nonclinical sample were obtained. On the basis of the results of the IRT analyses, a shortened version of the QGR (S-QGR) was constructed, consisting of 22 items, which functions in the same way in both the clinical and the nonclinical sample. Results indicated that the QGR consists of strong and reliable scales which are able to differentiate among persons. Psychometric characteristics of the S-QGR were adequate.
Beliefs About God and Mental Health
Religion, spirituality and health: a social scientific approach, 2017
This chapter highlights the major key findings presented in Chaps. 19, 20, and 21 on beliefs about God and mental health among Americans. The first part of the chapter summarizes evidence that belief in a benevolent God and belief in a malevolent God have, respectively, salubrious and pernicious associations with psychological well-being and distress in convenience samples of Christian college students, and with psychiatric symptoms in national samples of the U.S. general public. The next few sections of the chapter cover findings from small-scale and large-scale studies about (a) different types of religious coping related to one's perceived relationship with God, (b) the belief that one collaborates with God, and (c) their associations with psychological well-being (e.g., optimism, life-satisfaction, self-esteem) and psychological distress (including psychiatric symptoms). Subsequent sections describe the results of small-scale studies of U.S. college students and large national studies that have examined the association of believing one has an attachment relationship with God and psychological well-being and distress. The national studies that focused on psychological distress found that believing one has secure attachment to God has a salutary association with psychological distress, whereas believing one has an anxious attachment to God has a pernicious association with psychological distress. Key findings are interpreted in light of Evolutionary Threat Assessment Systems (ETAS) Theory, including the mediating effects of anxiety on psychological well-being. Results are also presented about the effects of self-esteem on anxiety, which are discussed in terms of ETAS Theory and Terror Management Theory.
Beliefs About the Nature of God and Mental Health
Religious Beliefs, Evolutionary Psychiatry, and Mental Health in America, 2017
The chapter reviews the results of several studies of convenience samples of students in the U.S. and U.K. and two large national studies of American adults that examined the association between beliefs about God and mental health. These studies indicate that belief in a benevolent God has a salubrious association with mental health, whereas belief in a malevolent God has a pernicious association with mental health. Based on ETAS Theory, the salubrious effects are interpreted to mean that belief in a benevolent God and the sense of safety that this belief provides increases the threshold of what constitutes a threat, thereby lowering anxiety and related psychiatric symptoms. Belief in a malevolent God, on the other hand, acts to lower the threshold of what constitutes a threat because God not only fails to provide protection from harm, but poses a direct threat of harm. Results related to belief in God and self-esteem are also presented and discussed in light of ETAS Theory. The chapter explains that self-esteem and self-efficacy reduce anxiety because belief in oneself and one's ability to address difficult situations and threats reduce the perception of the danger they pose. The chapter challenges the premise of Terror Management Theory that self-esteem evolved in humans as a buffer against fear of death, arguing instead, that both self-esteem and self-efficacy evolved long before our ancestors became aware or their own mortality. Finally, the chapter demonstrates that anxiety mediates the relationship between positive and negative beliefs about God and positive emotions (specifically, happiness).
A phenomenological investigation of the God image and religious diversity
Much of the research and literature on the God image, including the measures of the God image, have an implicit bias toward a traditional Judeo-Christian understanding of God. Additionally, relatively little research has been conducted on the God image outside of Europe and the Americas. This ignores issues of culture, diversity, and progressive understandings of God within the Judeo-Christian tradition. The current research project attempts to address these limitations through a study utilizing a phenomenological methodology. Interviews focusing on the experience of God with individuals from Asia, including Singapore and India, were conducted as well as interviews with individuals in the United States. Purposeful sampling was used in order to include individuals from various religious backgrounds, particularly individuals from the Judeo-Christian tradition and individuals from Hinduism. The inclusion of individuals from various cultures as well as from both monotheistic and polytheistic religious traditions allows the researchers to identify areas of similarities in individual God image across religions and cultures. Additionally, this methodology helps to identify individual differences in the experience of God. Particular attention is given to the role culture, gender, and other forms of diversity play in influencing how individuals experience God. The results have important implications for psychotherapy. In particular, this research represents advancements in understanding the role of culture in religious experience. The applications of this research are discussed in terms of how to conduct God image therapy in a culturally and religiously sensitive manner.