“What the Church needs to know about the human mind”
Dear X,
While science can explain religion, religion is not so well-equipped for the endeavor of explaining scientific facts. Science is well aware of the fact that the human mind evolved to believe in gods and that religion (main religions, that is) has not exactly updated its point of view when it comes to planetary history. It would be easy to explore Dawkins’ perspective and demonstrate religion’s detrimental role in the evolution of the human species in order to update religion regarding its limits.
However, I would like to adopt a positive vision and focus on a different issue brought to light by religion/spirituality - and that is faith and its influence on the human psyche. Studies have shown that individuals dealing with significant stressors like sickness, loss of loved ones separation, disaster or mental illness demonstrate that spirituality/religion are useful to people with fewer coping resources when in comes to coping with problems they cannot seem to be able to control. According to Pargament (1-2), people have a variety of religious coping forms. Among the most positive ones he mentions spiritual support coming from a higher power or a religious institution, rituals, spiritual forgiveness and rearranging a distressing situation into a larger, more meaningful context. Nevertheless, the dual nature of religion’s effect on human beings should be carefully taken into consideration – its negative side includes spiritual struggles associated with declining health. All in all, both clergy and psychologists should be aware of the vital resource for mental health and well-being that takes the form of faith.
Rationale
The concept of faith is the nucleus of some theists’ beliefs and is professed as a type of magical force that keeps the universe together. Neuroscience findings largely support the idea that the human mind is primed to believe mostly because human beings tend to look for meaning especially during uncertain moments – people are more likely to see patterns in a random dot display if they are primed to feel that they have no control (Whitson). In addition to that, human beings are biased to believe in supernatural forces.
A term coined by psychologists Scheier and Carver (202), “dispositional optimism” is defined as the general expectation that good things will abound and negative things will be scarce in the future. It is a form of faith as most healthy individuals tend to emotionally prefer positive over negative outcomes.
Optimism is linked with greater physical and psychological health- it has been associated with a greater ability to cope with adversity, an increased life satisfaction, better health habits, faster recovery rates in the case of heart surgery (Barry, cited in Parashar, 2). Certain findings suggest that optimism can be learned in a process (based on Beck and Ellis’ CBT) that creates psychological immunity to depression.
Another fallback that the Church should be aware of is the Dunning-Kruger effect (Kruger, Dunning, 1121-1134) that describes a process in which blind faith leads to ignorant and incompetent individuals to think they are the opposite of what they are in reality. In fact, individuals who are better prepare and intelligent have the tendency to underestimate their capabilities. An obvious example is that of certain creationists who claim superior knowledge of evolution when, in reality, their understanding of it is filled with knowledge gaps. In healthy conditions, individuals need time-out periods from positive illusions during which they can be honest with themselves. This period of honest analysis is essential to positive human functioning because continually adopting a positive outlook can alter thoughts potentially resulting in disillusion (Taylor and Brown 193).
Like Carver and Scheier (220) have outlined, an individual who looks at life in an optimistic manner, even when their optimism is based on unfounded beliefs, can experience a brighter life and the positive impact on well-being is impossible to ignore. Studies on optimism when it comes to health have demonstrated that optimistic habits promote physical health. Because it is difficult for humans to know how to apply these principles and use the power of positive illusions (that, like previously said, have protective effects on mental health), the Church could provide this support by understanding the mechanisms behind positive illusions. However, it should be obvious that a blindly optimistic person can oversee or underestimate the dangers of sickness and continue to detrimentally live in denial.
It is easy to see that positive illusions and their effect on improving general well-being is a potentially fruitful area of future research (Nicholson, 3), in addition to constituting a powerful psychological tool, that, in the context of understanding basic cognitive principles, can be used by the Church to improve the psychological and physical health of individuals. It is still debatable whether letting positive illusions take the form of faith and rephrasing them in a religious context is the ethical direction the Church should take- even though, doing so would only act as the recognition of the fact that narratives are essential to basic human functioning.
Bibliography
Atkins, David C., and Deborah E. Kessel. "Religiousness and infidelity: Attendance, but not faith and prayer, predict marital fidelity." Journal of Marriage and Family 70.2 (2008): 407-418.
Barry, Lisa C., et al. "Patient satisfaction with treatment after acute myocardial infarction: role of psychosocial factors." Psychosomatic medicine 69.2 (2007): 115-123.
Goodie, Adam S. "The role of perceived control and overconfidence in pathological gambling." Journal of Gambling Studies 21.4 (2005): 481-502.
Kruger, Justin, and David Dunning. "Unskilled and unaware of it: how difficulties in recognizing one's own incompetence lead to inflated self-assessments." Journal of personality and social psychology 77.6 (1999): 1121.
Nicholson, Katie. “Optimism and positive illusions”. Retrieved from http://www.positivepsychology.org.uk/ on 20/4/15.
Pargament, K. I. "What role do religion and spirituality play in mental health." Five questions for psychology of religion and spirituality. The American Psychological Association (2013).
Parashar, F. “Optimism and pessimism”. Retrieved on 20/4/15 from http://www.positivepsychology.org.uk/
Scheier, Michael F., and Charles S. Carver. "Effects of optimism on psychological and physical well-being: Theoretical overview and empirical update." Cognitive therapy and research 16.2 (1992): 201-228.
Taylor, Shelley E., and Jonathon D. Brown. "Positive illusions and well-being revisited: separating fact from fiction." (1994): 21.
Taylor, Shelley E., and Jonathon D. Brown. "Illusion and well-being: a social psychological perspective on mental health." Psychological bulletin 103.2 (1988): 193.
