On the belief in God: Towards an understanding of the emotional substrates of compensatory control

We suggest that beliefs in a controlling God originate, at least in part, from the desire to avoid the emotionally uncomfortable experience of perceiving the world as random and chaotic. Forty-seven participants engaged in an anxiety-provoking visualization procedure. For half, the procedure included a manipulation designed to temporarily lower beliefs in personal control. As predicted, it was only among those participants whose sense of personal control was threatened-i.e., participants in need of an alternate means for protecting their belief in a non-random world-that subjective anxiety led to increased subsequent beliefs in the existence of a controlling God. Wide-ranging implications are discussed. © 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Duke Scholars

Author Aaron Charles Kay Fuqua School of Business