Overall, religiousness is associated with better mental health status, yet single studies suggest a more sophisticated view on different aspects of religiousness, particularly in post-disaster contexts. A longitudinal field study was conducted among beneficiaries of a psycho-social support program after the 2013 flood disaster in Germany. It assessed flood-related experiences, mental and physical health, quality of life, and religiousness. Increased depressive and post-traumatic stress symptoms in flood victims were positively related with private (non-organizational) and negatively related to public (organizational) religiousness, respectively. Within the basic model accounting for established risk factors and after inclusion of provided psycho-social interventions, both aspects of religiousness demonstrated significant inverse relations with mental health outcomes. Evidence was found that the assessment of religious beliefs and practice and its integration into individualized support programs may be a starting point to increase the range and effectiveness of community-based disaster response efforts.
The aim of this article is to determine how assessments of the efficacy of rituals intended to harm or help are affected by whether the ritual performer is an in-group or out-group member. Participants from a US sample (n = 702) were asked to estimate the effects of rituals in six scenarios (3 helpful, 3 harmful), where the performer (Christian priest, Muslim imam, or spiritual healer) was varied between subjects. Their religiosity was further explored using the DUREL and CREDs scales. Christian participants (n = 351) judged helpful rituals as significantly more effective when performed by an in-group priest, and harmful rituals as significantly more effective when performed by an out-group imam. The non-religious participants (n = 351) showed no corresponding in-group/out-group pattern. For Christians, intrinsic religiosity (a DUREL subscale) predicted higher efficacy ratings for helpful rituals, while private religious practice (another DUREL subscale) was associated with lower efficacy ratings in some conditions and higher harm ratings for negative rituals. Religious upbringing (CREDs) had no significant effect. These findings show that assessments of ritual efficacy are strongly affected by in-group/out-group dynamics and that different dimensions of religiosity have distinct predictive relationships with these assessments. This has far-reaching implications for the study of supernatural beliefs, highlighting the methodological difficulty in studying the relationship between magic and religion.
