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Abstract Spirituality is a key social determinant of health for African Americans (AAs) and strongly impacts management of chronic pain. Older AAs (average age 68± 12.37) from urban and rural communities completed questionnaires (N= 110) and audio-recorded, semi-structured individual interviews (N= 18) describing osteoarthritis pain self-management. Prayer was used by 42% of AAs, with substantially fewer attending church (23.6%), watching religious television or reading the Bible/Christian literature (20.9%), listening to gospel music (18.2%), and laying of hands (8.2%). Interestingly, prayer and church attendance were the only pain strategies rated by more participants as very helpful. Regardless of religiosity, most AAs believed that spirituality was “an important aspect, whether we realize it always or not”. Specifically, prayer was considered “number one… ‘cause I know it’s gonna be all right once I do pray…prayer help heal the pain”. Spiritual strategies remain integral for chronic pain self-management despite lower than expected use among AAs.

Abstract Data was collected from older male offenders (N = 86 non-violent; N = 163 violent) incarcerated in Oklahoma. Testing a forgiveness model, positive evaluation of life PVOL was regressed on religiosity (REL) and forgiveness of self (FSelf), others (FOthers), and situation (FSit) using hierarchical OLS regression. Blocks of predictors included: a) age and education; b) religiosity; and c) FSelf, FOthers, and FSit. For the non-violent model of PVOL significant predictors included REL (β = .26, p ≤ .01) and FSelf (β = .40, p ≤ .01). For the violent offender model of PVOL significant predictors included REL (β = .31, p ≤ .001), FS (β = .21, p ≤ .01) and FSit (β = .33, p ≤ .001). Result indicate effects of REL and FSelf for both non-violent and violent offenders but a unique association of FSit for violent offenders. Implications for gerontological inquiry, practice, and policy are discussed.

Software piracy poses a significant challenge with both economic and ethical implications. This study examines the influence of neutralization techniques and religiosity—encompassing both intrinsic and extrinsic dimensions—on the intention to engage in software piracy. Employing robust structural equation modeling (SEM), we analyzed survey data collected from 338 undergraduate business students in the United States. The findings indicate that neutralization techniques, specifically condemning the condemners, appealing to higher loyalties, and utilizing the ledger metaphor, serve as predictors of piracy intentions, suggesting that individuals are inclined to use cognitive rationalizations to justify their engagement in piracy. Additionally, intrinsic religiosity exhibited a negative correlation with piracy intention, implying a protective effect attributed to internalized moral values. Conversely, extrinsic religiosity demonstrated a positive correlation with piracy intention, suggesting that participation in external religious activities may be associated with ethical justifications for piracy. Furthermore, gender and age emerged as significant factors, with female participants and older individuals displaying lower intentions to engage in piracy. These results contribute to the literature on digital piracy by integrating concepts from religiosity and neutralization theory.

In this article we want to give some ideas about spiritual support in pediatric palliative care. To provide this kind of support to patients, we give a hint about some models of childhood religiosity and its evolution. Then we explore the issues that the spirituality of children who are followed up in palliative care might face. After we want to suggest ways to make a treatment plan for “spiritual coping”, providing ideas about the available tools and ideas about the management of spiritual distress. Finally, we recall that spiritual assistance in palliative care must be offered not only to the child, but to his/her entire family.

There is a consensus among scientists that climate change is an existing, growing, and human-made threat to our planet. The topic is a divisive issue worldwide, including among people of faith. Little research has focused on the relationship between (non)religious belief and climate change. Hence, in Studies 1 and 2, the authors explore the impact of religious/non-religious orientations: intrinsic (religion as an end in itself), extrinsic (religion as a means to an end), quest (a journey toward religious understanding), and non-religious orientation (i.e., atheistic) on consumer attitudes toward the environment, focusing on recycling advertisements with (non)religious cues. Further, in Study 3, we examine the underlying causal mechanism of environmental identity and the moderating effect of political views on consumers’ lack of belief in climate change. The results show that religious people are less committed to the environment and climate change and that atheism positively affects recycling and climate change identity. The findings offer practical implications in that advertising campaigns need to be endorsed by religious leaders and channeled within the confines of the religious institutions they represent.

Introduction Moral absolutism is the notion that “rights” and “wrongs” are independent of situational circumstances, and it is a core philosophy of many religious traditions. We tested whether active church members and Christian pastors showed resiliency to mild sleep restriction when reporting religious beliefs/cognitions, when logging spiritual behaviors, and when judging the deserved-punishments for moral mistakes. Methods We recruited 92 adults who identified as active in Christian churches (members and pastors). On a Monday, participants completed baseline religiosity, mood, and cognitive functioning measures and were then randomly assigned to adhere to early (10:30pm) or late (1:30am) bedtimes for four nights, with 7:30am waketimes, while wearing actigraphy and keeping a daily diary of spiritual behaviors. On Friday, participants repeated the baseline assessments, responded whether a series of biblical stories were literal versus figurative, and rated a series of vignettes about moral mistakes that were committed by in-group leaders (pastors) and out-group leaders (imams; vignettes counterbalanced). Results The late bedtime condition reduced actigraphy-defined sleep by 85 min/night (p<.001). Despite spending more time awake, this sleep restricted group reported engaging in fewer spiritual behaviors during the week (e.g., prayer time; p<.01). On Friday, the sleep restricted group had worse mood disturbances (p<.001), worse subjective sleepiness (p<.001), and altered perceptions of the meaning of the Garden of Eden and Noah’s ark biblical stories (p<.05). Fluid intelligence was unaffected (p=.78). When evaluating religious leaders who made moral mistakes, the sleep restricted participants were significantly less forgiving (p<.01); for example, well-rested participants thought such leaders were still “somewhat likely” to get into Heaven, but sleep-restricted participants rated the leaders as “not very likely” to get into Heaven (p<.01). The effects of sleep restriction were most prominent in participants who most frequently attended religious services and when rating out-group religious leaders (r = -.49; opposite patterns were noted when participants were well-rested). Conclusion In contrast to moral absolutism philosophies, very mild sleep restriction produced significant changes to religious cognitions (story interpretation), spiritual behaviors, and expressions of beliefs (likeliness of getting into Heaven), and expressions of virtues (decreased forgiveness). Support (if any) URSA Grant and National Science Foundation (1920730, 1943323).

Religion's neural underpinnings have long been a topic of speculation and debate, but an emerging neuroscience of religion is beginning to clarify which regions of the brain integrate moral, ritual, and supernatural religious beliefs with functionally adaptive responses. In my presentation, I will review evidence indicating that religious cognition involves a complex interplay among the brain regions underpinning cognitive control, social reasoning, social motivations, emotion, reinforcement, and ideological beliefs. I will then conclude my presentation by summarizing current and future research efforts and why searching for God in the brain is critical to our understanding of human behavior. Upon conclusion of this course, learners will be able to: 1.Summarize the methods used to study the neural basis of religious belief.

Abstract This study assessed the interconnection between abortion, forgiveness, and social provisions on religiosity for N = 157 older women (45 years and older) under correctional custody in Oklahoma. Guided by the Model of Developmental Adaptation, path analysis was conducted positing positive religiosity as the developmental outcome, regressed on proximal influences assessed by social provisions and forgiveness and the distal influence, the independent predictor, whether or not a woman had ever had an elective abortion in their lifetime. Endogenous measures were controlled for age, race, marital status, education, and crime type. Using Mplus 8.8 and an estimator that provides parameter estimates and a chi-square test statistic robust to non-normality, the model fit well with a non-significant chi square test statistics and significant parameter estimates as expected. Reported history of abortion was significantly associated with forgiveness (β= .25, p < .05) and social provisions (β = .31, p < .05). Forgiveness was also significantly associated with religiosity (β = .32, p < .01). Mediating paths were not significant. Among these women, 37% of the developmental outcome, religiosity was explained primarily by forgiveness. It appears that older women in correctional custody who have received an elective abortion have a greater disposition to engage in forgiveness and seek social support. A greater disposition to forgive also directly contributes to increased religious activity among these same women. Results have implications relative to how forensic counselors, correctional social workers, and prison chaplains provide intervening services and rehabilitation programming to sustain quality-of-life for older women aging-in-custody.

Although there has been considerable theoretical support outlining a positive relationship between religiosity and voluntary simplicity, there is limited empirical evidence validating this relationship. This study examines the relationships among religious orientations (Allport and Ross in J Pers Soc Psychol 5(4):432-443, 1967) and voluntary simplicity in a sample of Australian consumers. The results demonstrate that intrinsic religiosity is positively related to voluntary simplicity; however, there is no relationship between extrinsic religiosity and voluntary simplicity. Furthermore, this research investigates the processes through which intrinsic religiosity affects voluntary simplicity. The relationship between intrinsic religiosity and voluntary simplicity is sequentially mediated by communal/personal wellbeing and environmental well-being. The findings not only identify a prosocial role of intrinsic religiosity in motivating voluntary simplicity, but also indicate that secular pursuits that enhance communal/personal well-being and environmental well-being may also motivate voluntary simplicity.

In the 1960s, it was taken for granted that modernization eroded religion. In the 1980s, this consensus was challenged by the rational choice, supply-side, or market model proposed by Rodney Stark and associates. In particular, they argued that the UK was hardly less religious then than it had been in 1880. Clive Field’s compendium of statistical data allows us to test Stark’s approach to the religiosity of the UK. We follow this with data on Europe and the USA. While we may still argue over some of the precise levers, there is now so much evidence in favor of the secularization approach that we regard it as vindicated.