Zhuo Job Chen

Muslim Experiential Religiousness in Pakistan: Meaning in Life, General Well-Being and gender differences

This study examined relationships of Muslim spirituality with positive psychology in Pakistan. In a sample of 200 university students and community members, the spirituality of Muslim Experiential Religiousness displayed direct linkages with Meaning in Life and General Well-Being subscales. Muslim Experiential Religiousness also correlated positively with single-item assessments of the Intrinsic, Extrinsic Personal, and Extrinsic Social Religious Orientations and explained the relationships of these religious motivations with General Life Satisfaction. Women scored higher than men on Muslim Experiential Religiousness, but at least some linkages of Muslim spirituality with positive psychology were more robust in men. As in other recent investigations, these data confirmed Muslim Experiential Religiousness as a valid index of Muslim spirituality beyond the Iranian cultural context in which it was developed.

Self-Control within a Muslim Ideological Surround: Empirical Translation Schemes and the Adjustment of Muslim Seminarians in Iran

Associated with the Ideological Surround Model of the relationship between religion and the social sciences, empirical translation schemes are a procedure for converting psychological measures into functionally equivalent religious constructs. In a sample of Muslim seminarians in Iran, this procedure transformed the Brief Self-Control Scale as a measure relevant to a non-religious Darwinian perspective into a language more reflective of a Muslim ideological surround. Brief and Muslim Self-Control scales correlated positively. Each also predicted the religious adjustment of a stronger Intrinsic and Extrinsic Personal Religious Orientation and the psychological adjustment of greater Self-Esteem and Satisfaction with Life and of lower Perceived Stress, Depression, and Anxiety. Correlation, multiple regression, and mediation analyses identified Darwinian and Muslim perspectives on self-control as largely compatible. This investigation most broadly illustrated the need for a post-postmodern sensitivity to immanent social scientific, transcendent religious, and dialogical ideological surrounds.

Muslim Experiential Religiousness: Spirituality Relationships With Psychological and Religious Adjustment in Iran

ABSTRACT Iranian university (N = 153) and Islamic seminary (N = 143) students responded to a Muslim Experiential Religiousness measure of spirituality. This instrument correlated positively with Integrative Self-Knowledge, Self-Control, Mindfulness, and Satisfaction With Life. Muslim Experiential Religiousness also displayed direct associations with Muslim Attitudes Toward Religion and with Intrinsic and Extrinsic Personal Religious Orientations. At higher levels of Muslim Experiential Religiousness, Muslim Attitudes Toward Religion displayed stronger connections with psychological and religious adjustment. Islamic seminarians self-reported higher Islamic spirituality than university students. Overall, Muslim Experiential Religiousness appeared to assess a Muslim form of spiritual self-regulation.

Religious Schema within a Muslim Ideological Surround

With Religious Schema Scales in the West, Truth of Texts and Teachings correlates negatively with the commitment to interreligious dialogue recorded by Xenosophia. This measure of fundamentalism also predicts problematic religious and psychosocial functioning. The present project examined Religious Schema Scales in university students and Islamic seminarians in the Muslim cultural context of Iran. Truth of Texts and Teachings correlated positively rather than negatively with Xenosophia and predicted religious and psychological adjustment. The adaptive implications of Truth of Texts and Teachings were especially evident in Islamic seminarians. These results supplemented previous Religious Schema data from India and Malaysia in suggesting that fundamentalism may have more positive implications outside the West. Cross-cultural differences in fundamentalism more generally support arguments of an Ideological Surround Model that the incommensurability of religious and other social rationalities requires careful research attention.

Muslim Distress Mobilization Hypothesis: complex roles of Islamic Positive Religious Coping and Punishing Allah Reappraisal in Iranian students

ABSTRACT Muslim religious coping may include distress mobilisation effects that explain why adaptive and maladaptive forms of religious coping correlate positively rather than nonsignificantly, as they usually do in the West. In this study, 147 Iranian university students responded to Islamic Positive Religious Coping (IPRC) and Punishing Allah Reappraisal (PAR) Scales along with Religious Orientation, Perceived Stress, and mental health measures. IPRC and PAR correlated positively, and procedures accounting for their covariance were essential in disambiguating their implications. IPRC predicted stronger Intrinsic and Extrinsic Personal Religious Orientations, but PAR displayed no relationship with religious motivations. PAR pointed toward broadly negative mental health influences with IPRC displaying limited ties with adjustment. PAR partially mediated some Perceived Stress relationships with poorer mental health. These data offered some support for a Muslim Distress Mobilization Hypothesis, but also uncovered issues that require further clarification.

Poets and transliminality: Relationships with mystical experience and religious commitment in Iran.

Poetic and mystical consciousness may be related, and transliminality may be a thread that ties mystical with poetic but not with religious experience. In the present project, Iranian poets and nonpoets responded to measures of mystical experience, transliminality, religious commitment, and psychological adjustment. Poets scored higher on mystical experience and transliminality, but not on measures of religious commitment. Transliminality fully or partial explained connections between being a poet and self-reports of mystical experience and between some but not all aspects of mystical experience. Transliminality displayed no linkages with religious comment and in fact suppressed the relationship of the religious interpretation of mystical experience with an extrinsic personal religious orientation. These data most importantly revealed a connection between poetic and mystical consciousness and suggested that transliminality is a selective thread that ties the two together.

Post-Critical Beliefs and Religious Reflection: Religious Openness Hypothesis in Iranian University and Islamic Seminary Students

Negative relationships between Post-Critical Beliefs in Iran imply that Muslim perspectives are closed-minded, but positive correlations between Religious Reflection factors point instead toward a Muslim open-mindedness. The hypothesis of this study was that this contrast reveals the Post-Critical Belief of Symbolism to be a questionable index of Muslim open-mindedness. Iranian university students and Islamic seminarians ( N = 296) responded to Post-Critical Beliefs, Religious Reflection, Religious Orientation, Quest, Rumination-Reflection, and Satisfaction with Life measures. The “openness” of Symbolism correlated negatively with the “openness” of Intellect Oriented Reflection. Other relationships broadly documented Muslim potentials for openness. Evidence of open-mindedness also appeared in contrasts between university students and Islamic seminarians. These results argued against Symbolism as a culturally sensitive measure of Muslim open-mindedness and supported the claim of the Religious Openness Hypothesis that traditional religions have at least some potentials for openness that can be obscured by contextual influences.

Religious Problem-Solving Styles within an American Religious Ideological Surround

In a previous Iranian investigation, comparative rationality analysis procedures associated with the ideological surround model of psychology and religion examined the influence of Muslim religious rationalities on responding to religious problem-solving style scales. This study extended the analysis to 306 mostly Christian American university students. As in Iran, the collaborative problem-solving style was consistent with, and the self-directing style was inconsistent with, religious commitments and psychological adjustment. The deferring style had ambiguous implications in Iran, and the same was true in the United States, albeit in different ways. Religious rationalities mediated problem-solving style relationships with other variables in a manner documenting the complexity of American religious perspectives. Most generally, these data suggested that empirical attention to the incommensurable rationalities of religions and the social sciences can promote deeper insights into both.