THE EFFECT OF RELIGION ON THE HUMAN MIND: ANALYSES OF LANGUAGE USE AND PERSONALITY

초록

Previous research has shown that being religious is beneficial in various ways. Though religion's benefits are well-studied, few investigations have provided quantitative and explorative perspectives on its effects. Most studies concern religion's influence on specific psychological aspects of the human mind. This study investigated whether people's language use reflects the effects of religious training. We analyzed writing samples from 12 new believers in the Catholic Church via a language analysis program and conducted relevant psychological tests. The results showed language patterns changed significantly with religious training, even though these changes did not show any correlations with the psychological scales. These results indicate that religiosity can be reflected in certain language behaviors. Moreover, the results suggest language usage can be a reliable and sensitive index for measuring religiosity.

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