For God (or) country: The hydraulic relation between government instability and belief in religious sources of control.

Abstract

It has been recently proposed that people can flexibly rely on sources of control that are both internal and external to the self to satisfy the need to believe that their world is under control (i.e., that events do not unfold randomly or haphazardly). Consistent with this, past research demonstrates that, when personal control is threatened, people defend external systems of control, such as God and government. This theoretical perspective also suggests that belief in God and support for governmental systems, although seemingly disparate, will exhibit a hydraulic relationship with one another. Using both experimental and longitudinal designs in Eastern and Western cultures, the authors demonstrate that experimental manipulations or naturally occurring events (e.g., electoral instability) that lower faith in one of these external systems (e.g., the government) lead to subsequent increases in faith in the other (e.g., God). In addition, mediation and moderation analyses suggest that specific concerns with order and structure underlie these hydraulic effects. Implications for the psychological, sociocultural, and sociopolitical underpinnings of religious faith, as well as system justification theory, are discussed.

System justification and the defense of committed relationship ideology.

“…That is, men appear to be defending traditional relationship ideology not only because of its relation to the larger socio-political system that people are motivated to defend (Jost & Banaji, 1994), but also because of its utility in preserving male dominance (Sidanius & Pratto, 1999). Whereas the hydraulic relation between support for political and relational systems observed in Studies 1-4 is unique to system justification theory (e.g., Jost, Ledgerwood, & Hardin, 2008;Kay, Shepherd, et al, 2010;Wakslak, Jost, & Bauer, in press), the fact that this effect is strongest for men, especially when their dominance is most under threat, fits well with a social dominance approach (Sidanius & Pratto, 1999).…”

“…Past work on system justification has demonstrated that systems are defended, in part, because they provide a sense of predictability and order in a sometimes unpredictable world, that is, they can serve as an external source of control (Jost & Hunyady, 2005;Kay & Jost, 2003;Kay, Shepherd, et al, 2010; see also Lerner, 1980). Thus, a more specific way to examine whether the system justification motive influences the defense of committed relationship values would be to assess whether perception of relationships as a means of external control contributes to the defense of this ideology.…”

Seeking structure in social organization: Compensatory control and the psychological advantages of hierarchy.

“…People who lack personal control perceive increased structure in random arrays (i.e., see pictures in static; Whitson & Galinsky, 2008) and believe more strongly in agents that impose structure on the world, such as a controlling god or a controlling government (Kay, Gaucher, Napier, Callan, & Laurin, 2008;Kay, Moscovitch, & Laurin, 2010;Kay, Shepherd, Blatz, Chua, & Galinsky, 2010;Shepherd, Kay, Landau, & Keefer, 2011). People lacking personal control also endorse scientific theories that suggest orderliness rather than randomness (Rutjens, van Harreveld, & van der Plight, 2010;Rutjens, van Harreveld, van der Plight, Kreemers, & Noordeweir, 2013;Rutjens, van der Plight, & van Harreveld, 2010), and folk beliefs that provide orderly explanations for negative events (e.g., that they are "a blessing in disguise") can foster a more global sense of control (Chipperfield et al, 2012).…”

Divergent effects of activating thoughts of God on self-regulation.

“…Gray & Wegner, 2010). Moreover, empirical investigations of Kay et al's (2008) model of compensatory control have demonstrated that people in cultures across the globe tend to view God as a crucial contributing factor to the events that unfold in their lives, especially when the need for explanation is heightened Kay, Shepherd, Blatz, Chua, & Galinsky, 2010;Laurin et al, 2008). Research has also shown that because Christians believe in God, they are more likely to attribute improbable events to fate and to endorse the principle of equifinality-that is, to believe that events that take place would have occurred no matter what had preceded them (Norenzayan & Lee, 2010).…”