science

The Psychology of Religion and Coping

The Psychology of Religion and Coping is a science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand The Psychology of Religion and Coping rather than just read about it. In short: The Psychology of Religion and Coping: Theory, Research, Practice by Kenneth Pargament was published in the United States in 1997. It is addressed to professional psychologists and researchers, and has been reviewed in many professional journals.

Key takeaways

The Psychology of Religion and Coping belongs to science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect The Psychology of Religion and Coping to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of The Psychology of Religion and Coping from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

The Psychology of Religion and Coping: Theory, Research, Practice by Kenneth Pargament was published in the United States in 1997. It is addressed to professional psychologists and researchers, and has been reviewed in many professional journals. Originally hardbound, it was republished as a paperback in 2001. By 2010, it had been cited more than 450 times in the psychology literature.

Topics covered The Psychology of Religion and Coping contains 12 chapters that include an introduction and 11 other chapters divided into 4 parts. The parts are entitled:

Part One. A perspective on religion (2 chapters) Part Two. A perspective on coping (2 chapters) Part Three. The religion and coping connection (4 chapters) Part Four. Evaluative and practical implications (3 chapters) The book also includes 5 appendices.

Reviews and influence

Reviews have appeared in The American Journal of Psychiatry, The Gerontologist, the Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, the Journal of the American Academy of Religion, the Religious Studies Review Death Studies, and elsewhere. In the American Journal of Psychiatry, Armando R. Favazza, a widely-published author and Professor Emeritus of Psychiatry, wrote that "This is a very fair and respectful book.... The book sets a new standard of excellence for works on religion and psychology. Although it lacks any biological or psychiatric focus, I highly recommend it to colleagues who desire to organize their thoughts about religion." (p. 988). In The Gerontologist, George wrote that it was:

The best book that I have read on religion from a psychosocial perspective. As the title indicates, the primary focus of this volume is examination of the links between religion and coping. One of the important qualities of this book is that there is no effort to view religion as one form of coping or to view coping as a manifest function of religion. Each concept is treated in careful conceptual and empirical detail, and the links that emerge testify to the importance of each, separately and jointly. The scope of the book is encyclopedic. I could not identify a question that I had that was not addressed. (p. 508)

In the Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, McFadden wrote:

This book represents a major theoretical and empirical contribution not only to the psychology of religion and clinical/counseling psychology but to other fields as well. Along with psychologists, persons in religious professions can learn much from Pargament. Mental health professionals, who traditionally have shunned religion in their own lives and in the lived experience of their clients, might be persuaded by Pargament's broadband approach to investigate how religion operates in the tales of coping and crisis they hear on a daily basis. (p. 368)

She added that:

This book is also appropriate for use in courses on the psychology of religion. My students have responded positively to Pargament's careful exposition of his theory, the support he offers in examples from his research and clinical practice, and his engaging use of metaphor. (pp. 368–369)

In the Journal of the American Academy of Religion, McIntosh wrote that:

The weaknesses of this book are a function of its strengths. By aiming for a wide audience the book must cover a lot of ground, some of which is elementary review for some of the readership. The book probes deeply into the complexities of the topic and is encyclopedic in its coverage of the research; it is therefore somewhat daunting in size. By not avoiding the theoretical controversies and empirical weaknesses in this area, the conclusions are sometimes uncertain and the implications more muddy than in less open-eyed, more partisan work.... I highly recommend this book to scholars and practitioners of psychology and religion. It will likely be a long wait until another such impressive work in this area appears. (pp. 702–703)

See also Multidimensional Measurement of Religiousness/Spirituality for Use in Health Research (1999 book) Handbook of Religion and Health (2001 book) Faith and Health: Psychological Perspectives (2001 book)

References

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with The Psychology of Religion and Coping

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what The Psychology of Religion and Coping claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to The Psychology of Religion and Coping before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about The Psychology of Religion and Coping ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of The Psychology of Religion and Coping

In research: The Psychology of Religion and Coping appears in science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses The Psychology of Religion and Coping in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: The Psychology of Religion and Coping is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1997 in religion, 1997 non-fiction books, Guilford Press books, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for The Psychology of Religion and Coping outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study The Psychology of Religion and Coping in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what The Psychology of Religion and Coping means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
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Frequently asked questions

What is The Psychology of Religion and Coping in simple terms?

Why does The Psychology of Religion and Coping matter?

Because it connects several science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study The Psychology of Religion and Coping?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on The Psychology of Religion and Coping.