Heightened religiosity and epilepsy: evidence for religious-specific neuropsychological processes

It has been hypothesised that humans may have an innate neurologic tendency towards being religiously oriented, suggesting that we possess religious-specific neuropsychological processes. Persons with epilepsy provide a unique opportunity to study these relationships given the documented hyper-relig...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Mental health, religion & culture
Authors: Johnstone, Brick (Author) ; Holliday, Greyson (Author) ; Cohen, Daniel (Author)
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
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Published: Taylor & Francis 2016
In: Mental health, religion & culture
Year: 2016, Volume: 19, Issue: 7, Pages: 704-712
Further subjects:B Spirituality
B BMMRS
B Bear Fedio Inventory
B Epilepsy
B Religiosity
Online Access: Volltext (lizenzpflichtig)
Description
Summary:It has been hypothesised that humans may have an innate neurologic tendency towards being religiously oriented, suggesting that we possess religious-specific neuropsychological processes. Persons with epilepsy provide a unique opportunity to study these relationships given the documented hyper-religious experiences observed with epilepsy. The current study evaluated 19 individuals with epilepsy to determine if epilepsy-related religious experiences (as measured by the Bear Fedio Inventory [BFI]) are reflective of a general increase in behaviours observed with epilepsy (e.g., philosophical thoughts, emotionality), or if they are reflective of a religious-specific orientation. Spearman correlations indicated that: (1) BFI religious-orientation scales are significantly related to philosophical concerns (i.e., nature of the universe), but not measures of emotionality and (2) BFI religious-orientation scales, but not philosophical or emotionality scales, are significantly associated with other commonly used measures of spirituality. These findings suggest that individuals may possess neuropsychological processes that are specific to religious orientations.
ISSN:1469-9737
Contains:Enthalten in: Mental health, religion & culture
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.1080/13674676.2016.1238449