Schizotypal traits and dimensions of religiosity

[Dr. van Winkle]

Schizotypal traits and dimensions of religiosity

James Crissey, Rebbecca Gaffny-Brown, Mahana Chang

November 2, 2001 | Link

Deborah Diduca and Stephen Joseph conducted an experiment to investigate the association between religiosity and schizophrenia. In the past it has been suggested that religiosity may be considered an aspect of schizophrenia. This is an important issue because if religiosity is an aspect of shizotypy/schizophrenic behavior, than religiosity could be a predisposing factor to schizophrenia. Past research has found an association between religiosity and schizophrenia but no strong correlation has ever been discovered and further research is suggested. Researchers have identified four main categories of religiosity: preoccupation, guidance, conviction, and emotional involvement. The study by Diduca and Joseph aimed at devising a scale to measure these aspects of religiosity, and to test each aspect for its relationship to schizophrenia.

The experiment consisted of 201 subjects ranging from 17 to 71 years old. The task of each subject was to fill out questionnaires regarding both schizotypal behavioral traits as well as religiosity. To assess schizotypal behavioral traits subjects filled out Claridge’s STQ, consisting of schizotypal personality (STA), and borderline personality (STB) scales. Subjects also completed Echblad and Chapman’s magical ideation (MgI) scale, which was used to identify magical or unstable thoughts common in schizophrenia. In addition in order to assess religiosity, respondents also completed the Francis Scale of Attitudes towards Christianity (FSAC), as well as four six-item scales devised for the present study to assess preoccupation, Guidance, conviction, and emotional involvement.

Higher scores on each of the four scales developed for the present study were associated with higher scores on the FSAC, thus confirming convergent validity. Correlations were computed for each of the religiosity scales and each of the schizotypal scales for men and women individually. For woman, there was no correlation between any of the religiosity scales and the schizotypal scales. However, for men there was a correlation between higher scores on the religious preoccupation scale and higher scores on the magical ideation scale. No other correlations were found.

The final result of the study was the discovery that no associations were found between the schizotypy scales and the FSAC. More importantly Diduca and Joseph discovered that there is a relationship between higher scores on the religious preoccupation scale and higher scores on the magical ideation scale for men. “These data suggest that multidimensional assessment of religiosity may be useful and that it is the dimension of religious preoccupation which may account for any association between religiosity and schizotypy.”(Diduca & Joseph, 1997, p.637) One possible explanation for the existing correlation for men and not women is genetics. Claridge & Hewitt, among others, suggest that schizotypy is under greater genetic control in men than women. Still, further research is required to show the relationship between schizophrenia and genetics. Recent research has also found the schizotypy concept to be composed of four aspects, characterized as aberrant perceptions and beliefs, cognitive disorganization, introvertive anhedonia (which is when a person lacks the ability to experience pleasure), and asocial behavior. Further work should be conducted to prove the relationship between these four aspects of schizophrenia and religiosity.

In conclusion, it is important to realize that there is a difference between religious experience and religiosity, and that this study does not look into religious experience. In the past, religious experience has been associated with schizophrenia and it would have been useful to look into whether or not religious experience leads to religious preoccupation. “It might be argued that there exists an assumption within much of the research community that religiosity is an aspect of schizotypal thinking.” (Diduca & Joseph, 1997, p.637) Still there is not enough evidence to prove the relationship between schizophrenia and religiosity and further research is suggested.

[Psychonaut]

This article confuses me a bit. I can certainly understand drawing a link between religious experiences and psychopathology, but to call a behavior that more than half of the world's population engages in pathological seems, to me, to invalidate the definition as a pathology. After all, what use is there in describing a behavior that most people engage as a disorder? If we accept that a pathology is a deviation from the norm of human behavior, then such a behavior as religiosity, regardless of it's similarity with other pathologies, would fall outside of the term's scope.

Now, regarding similarities between religious experience and mental illness, Eliade's Shamanism (pp. 26-27) says:

Regarded in the horizon of homo religiosus--the only horizon with which we are concerned in the present study--the mentally ill patient proves to be an unsuccessful mystic or, better, the caricature of a mystic. His experience is without religious content, even if it appears to resemble a religious experience, just as an act of autoeroticism arrives at the same physiological result as a sexual act properly speaking (seminal emission), yet at the same time is but a caricature of the latter because it is without the concrete presence of the partner.

[Agrippa]

If looking at the normal psychological spectrum, we can distinguish different types or tendencies, and the schizothymic spectrum has a fluent border toward whats being called schizotypical.

Furthermore its very important to note, that religious leaders and experiences are much more likely to occur in pathological or apathological cases which tend towards schizoid or zykloid, especially manic, personality types.

Whats also quite interesting to me is, whether "pseudo-pathological conditions" of religious experiences and convictions can be induced by the environment and influence the personality and its behaviour as well as apperception on the longer run.

In religious matters, the borderline between "normal" and "pathological" conditions seems to be pretty fluent to me, with pathological I refer to views, actions and perceptions which go very far away from reality, even though better knowledge is available, but the subject in question refuses to accept the facts.

Creationists f.e. are for me, in a way, almost always pathological cases in a certain sense, if having access to the facts and better knowledge.

Religiosity becomes pathological, when people see a river flowing down, but say, because its said in their religion, its flowing up, even though they are using the water exactly the way it goes and if it would be otherwise, their real life wouldnt work. So they neglect the reality in favour of a more or less fancy dreamworld.

Religion is healthy, even if constructing a fancy dreamworld, as long as it supports whats needed in real life and accepts the facts which the people have to recognise for a better handling of the actual needs and challenges. For giving the people hope and strength in face of the inconvienences life offers.

It should be always supportive, never central nor obstructive in the real life context and challenges a people is facing.

That way, Islam was a great step forward and revolutionary strategy for the Arabs in Early Medieval Times. It really worked for these people on all levels of life, gave them great new advantages and relatively rational rules (in comparison to what was before!) which could be useful under the regional circumstances of that time.

The problem with religions, even if the prophets were good leaders, comes with its freezing and from the fact, that especially in book religions, all following generations have to find an argument, no matter how rational the change might be, in the old writings to support the reform or change, even though the actual circumstances might be completely new.

I think its also very interesting that this study says the correlation is weaker in women, which makes perfect sense, because the male religiosity is usually one of rules in a world religions structures and the opinion of moral superiority or great goals in a strong belief, the female one can be like that but, but also more defined by rituals and simple hope - so a weaker, yet more simple and less complex form of religious belief.

[lei.talk]

...to call a behavior that more than half of the world's population engages in pathological seems, to me, to invalidate the definition as a pathology. After all, what use is there in describing a behavior that most people engage as a disorder? If we accept that a pathology is a deviation from the norm...

is not pathology deviation from the healthy.

malnutrition, tuberculosis, syphilis and malaria were - once - the norm.
*

[Psychonaut]

is not pathology deviation from the healthy.

malnutrition, tuberculosis, syphilis and malaria were - once - the norm.

True, but are behavioral pathologies really comparable with physiological pathologies?

[Agrippa]

True, but are behavioral pathologies really comparable with physiological pathologies?

Thats part of the question I raised actually, because certain behavioural patterns influence the way the brain is functioning on the longer run, it "leaves marks" so to say.
Therefore one could question, whether a genetically normal child, under the constant pressure and in a "demanding" environment can actually suffer from ill-functioning ways of thinking, feeling and reasoning.

I have especially "New Christians" and superstitious groups in mind, in which the people, adult people around the children, espect "religious experiences" from the younger, that they actually "feel the god" or even hear and see it (!). They begin to cry and often resist at start but then they try to fulfil the adult's expectations and start to act like they should, often play their part like actors, until they begin to believe in that crap.

For a simple reason I might add, namely for social acceptance, security and competition - the compete for acceptance and love of the parents, adult, social environment, like all social animals, humans included, do one way or another. If living in that madness, such a mad environment long enough, they might confuse "belief" and reality like other people in normal families only do if having a psychotic stimulus.

The reason is some sort of "mass psychosis", in which the expectatations of the majority have to come true for the individual for being accepted and for being able to live with that lie. If you can only be accepted by the others and your own conscious if the lie is true, it becomes true and might even influence your perception of reality, distort it in a way comparable to psychotic conditions.

Thats the way of fanatic religiosity which is, in any case, pathological and goes far away from forms of general motivation and world explanations so to say. Quite often really psychotic or borderline people begin to construct such a parallel reality, and if the majority sees some sort of advantage in it, they begin to follow that construct as if it is reality, resulting in the distortion of reality and a "mass psychosis".

Of course, such distortions of reality are not limited to religious experiences and beliefs, you can find them in economy even, just thinking of self-fulfilling prophecies or propagandistic manipulations which are far, far away from all facts.

One example being regimes, including the 3rd Reich, in which at the end of the war many people still believed in "the end victory", though all facts clearly spoke against it, the hostile foreign armies were already in the core areas of the own territory, economy broken down and the own armies defeated. There were those still fighting for their belief though knowing and accepting the belief (which would be rational in a way) and those believing in propaganda lies, false hopes, neglecting the truth and going on with their dreamworld though knowing enough facts for knowing better.

Religion is alway irrational in a way, but it is also rational in another way as long as it just tries to explain what we cannot now by belief and speculation. So the crucial aspect is the absense of obvious conflicts with reality and real life contexts, a quality most religions in their superstitious way lack though, at least from a more enlightened point of view, since people with a low intelligence and bad education have more weak points of knowledge which can be still explained by superstition, simply because they are unable to actually know better...

One can sum it up with: The less you know (or accept as common knowledge, which can be a more or less conscious decision), the more you have to believe in, even if its contradicted by reality.

[lei.talk]

judging from many previous conversations
(with many other discussants),

the degree of identity/dissimilarity
in any analogy/simile will vary
based on the level of conceptualisation
one chooses to focus up on.

as "things in reality"
disfunctions/deformities/injuries/infections of the body
differ in detail
from disfunctions/deformities/injuries/infections of the mind -

does the abstracted relationship

of the optimal state of bodily health
(and/or environment)
which minimises the effects
of any disfunctions/deformities/injuries/infections

differ in principle

from the optimal state of mental health
(and/or environment)
which minimises the effects
of any disfunctions/deformities/injuries/infections?
*

[Psychonaut]

does the abstracted relationship

of the optimal state of bodily health
(and/or environment)
which minimises the effects
of any disfunctions/deformities/injuries/infections

differ in principle

from the optimal state of mental health
(and/or environment)
which minimises the effects
of any disfunctions/deformities/injuries/infections?

Without resorting to any kind of mind/body dualism, which I find to be a generally unwholesome and untenable fiction, I think that there is a qualitative difference between a physical abnormality that assails you and a behavior in which you participate. The former is, for the most part, out of your control, whereas the latter is willfully engaged in. Granted, as Agrippa points out, there is a point, with fundamentalist cults in particular, where the line between willful participation in a religion and psychological coercion are blurred. However, to attribute the worst excesses of cult-like behavior onto the whole of religiosity is, in my book at least, a gross over exaggeration.

[Lyfing]

I’m no psychologist, but I have been under their “care” plenty. When I was 13-14 they classified me as not nearly plumb Schizoid, doped me out of my gourd, and took me away from my family for a little over a year. All because of what they called my “brief psychotic episodes.” Which were really just my insides wigging me out as I entered into the realm of a (my) mature(ing) psyche.

A good portion of what I know about these things comes from reading Joseph Campbell’s books. Just the other day I quoted a bunch of his stuff in some thread around here. Funny this one pops up..?? ( Jung’s Synchronicity, or just plain Wyrd..?? )

I’m going to quote the same thing ( the work..the different types I left out there ) here..

In his article on shamanism Dr. Silverman had distinguished two very different types of*schizophrenia. One he calls "essential*schizophrenia"; the other, "paranoid schizophrenia"; and it is in essential*schizophrenia*alone that analogies appear with what I have termed "the shaman crisis." In essential*schizophrenia*the characteristic pattern is of withdrawal from the impacts of experience in the outside world. There is a narrowing of concern and focus. The object world falls back and away, and invasions from the unconscious overtake and overwhelm one. In "paranoid*schizophrenia," on the other hand ,the person remains alert and extremely sensitive to the world and its events, interpreting all, however, in terms of his own projected fantasies, fears, and terrors, and with a sense of being in danger from assaults. The assaults, actually, are from within, but he projects them outward, imagining that the world is everywhere on watch against him. This, states Dr. Silverman, is not the type of*schizophrenia*that leads to the sorts of inward experience that are analogous to those of shamanism. "It is as if the paranoid schizophrenic," he explains, "unable to comprehend or tolerate the stark. terrors of his inner world, prematurely directs his attention to the outside world. In this type of abortive crisis solution, the inner chaos is not, so to speak, worked through, or is not capable of being worked through." The lunatic victim is at large, so to say, in the field of his own projected unconscious. The opposite type of psychotic patient, on the other hand, a pitiful thing to behold, has dropped into a snake-pit deep within. His whole attention, his whole being, is down there, engaged in a life-and-death battle with the terrible apparitions of unmastered psychological energies-which, it would appear, is exactly what the potential shaman also is doing in the period of his visionary journey. And so, we have next to ask what the difference is between the predicament of the "essential schizophrenic" and that of the trance-prone shaman: to which the answer is simply that the primitive shaman does not reject the local social order and its forms; that, in fact, it is actually by virtue of those forms that he is brought back to rational consciousness. And when he has returned, furthermore, it is generally found that his inward personal experiences reconfirm, refresh, and reinforce the inherited local forms; for his personal dream-symbology is at one with the symbology of his culture. Whereas, in contrast, in the case of a modern psychoticpatient, there is a radical break off and no effective association at all with the symbol system of his culture. The established symbol system here provides no help at all to the poor lost schizophrenic, terrified by the figments of his own imagination, to which he is a total stranger; whereas, in the case of the primitive shaman, there is between his outward life and his inward a fundamental accord.

Schizophrenia: the Inward Journey, a part of Myths to Live By

So, umm, … I’m pretty sure that we are indeed das kranke Tier. Knowing and just so having to think about it all drives some of us nuts. And, well, nuts are seeds, from them grow things, what are we growing..??..keepers of oaths..?? Here is the society notion ..it goes with how a nut can be called a nut..does it belong..does it earn it‘s own keeping..??..( by growing into a creation..?? )

Later,
-Lyfing