Psychology of religious fundamentalism and personal values: a psychological perspective

Journal title RICERCHE DI PSICOLOGIA
Author/s Leonardo Carlucci
Publishing Year 2015 Issue 2015/2 Language Italian
Pages 13 P. 377-389 File size 181 KB
DOI 10.3280/RIP2015-002007
DOI is like a bar code for intellectual property: to have more infomation click here

Below, you can see the article first page

If you want to buy this article in PDF format, you can do it, following the instructions to buy download credits

Article preview

FrancoAngeli is member of Publishers International Linking Association, Inc (PILA), a not-for-profit association which run the CrossRef service enabling links to and from online scholarly content.

Religious fundamentalism represents a complex religious phenomenon involving both cultural and social domains. The term has been wrongly used as a synonym of terrorism, integralism and extremism. This paper is composed of two complementary parts, which attempt to delineate the religious fundamentalism construct. The first part reviewed the main sociological and psychological defini tions of the religious fundamentalism, the instruments created to measure its components, the most credible hypothesis on the evolution of fundamentalists. The second part investigated the presence of typical value-characteristics of the religious fundamentalist. The study highlights the significant relationship between the religious fundamentalism and values on the Openness/Conservatism continuum.

Keywords: Fundamentalism, values, schema, tradition, antimodernism

  1. Aletti, M. (2004). Identita religiosa, pluralismo, fondamentalismo. Prospettive psicologiche. In M. Aletti & G. Rossi (Eds.), Identità religiosa, pluralismo, fondamentalismo (pp. 25-46). Torino: Centro Scientifico Editore.
  2. Altemeyer, B. (1996). The authoritarian specter. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
  3. Altemeyer, B. (2003). Why do religious fundamentalists tend to be prejudiced?. The International Journal for the Psychology of Religion, 13, 17-28. DOI: 10.1207/S15327582IJPR1301_03
  4. Sandeen, E.R. (1970). The roots of fundamentalism: British and American millenarianism, 1800–1930. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
  5. Altemeyer, B., & Hunsberger, B. (1992). Authoritarianism, religious fundamentalism, quest, and prejudice. The International Journal for the Psychology of Religion, 2(2), 113-133. DOI: 10.1207/s15327582ijpr0202_5
  6. Altemeyer, B., & Hunsberger, B. (1997). Amazing conversions: why some turn to faith and others abandon religion. Amherst, NY: Prometheus Press.
  7. Altemeyer, B., & Hunsberger, B. (2004). A revised religious fundamentalism scale: the short and sweet of it. The International Journal for the Psychology of Religion, 14(1), 47-54. DOI: 10.1207/s15327582ijpr1401_4
  8. Barr, J. (1977). Fundamentalism. London: SCM Press.
  9. Blogowska, J., & Saroglou, V. (2011). Religious fundamentalism and limited prosociality as a function of the target. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, 50, 44-60. DOI: 10.1111/j.1468-5906.2010.01551.x
  10. Bouchard, T.J.Jr., Segal, N.L., Tellegen, A., McGue, M., Keyes, M., & Krueger, R.F. (2004). Genetic influence on social attitudes: another challenge to psychology from behavior genetics. In L. DiLalla (Ed.), Behavior genetic principles: development, personality and psychopathology (pp. 89-104). Washington,
  11. DC: American Psychological Association Press. Capanna, C., Vecchione, M., & Schwartz, S.H. (2005). La misura dei valori. Un contributo alla validazione del portrait values questionnaire su un campione italiano. Bollettino di Psicologia Applicata, 246, 29-41.
  12. Carpenter, J.A., (1997). Revive US again: the re-awakening of American protestantism. New York: Oxford University Press.
  13. Carlucci, L. (2012). The religious fundamentalism: a psychometric analysis of cognitive functions. Unpublished doctoral dissertation. University “G. d’Annunzio” Chieti-Pescara.
  14. Carlucci, L., Tommasi, M., Balsamo, M., Furnham, A., & Saggino, A. (2015). Religious fundamentalism and psychological well-being: an Italian study. Journal of Psychology and Theology, 43(1), 23-33.
  15. Carlucci, L., Tommasi, M., & Saggino, A. (2013). Factor structure of the Italian version of the religious fundamentalism scale. Psychological Reports, 112(1), 6-13. DOI: 10.2466/07.17.PR0.112.1.6-13
  16. Hill, P.C., & Hood, R.W.Jr. (1999). Measures of religiosity. Birmingham, AL: Religious Education Press.
  17. Higgins, E.T. (1997). Beyond pleasure and pain. American Psychologist, 52, 1280-1300. DOI: 10.1037/0003-066X.52.12.1280
  18. Hood, Jr R.W., Hill, P.C., & Williamson, W.P. (2005). The psychology of religious fundamentalism. New York: Guilford.
  19. Kellstedt, L., & Corwin, S. (1991). Measuring fundamentalism: An analysis of different operational strategies. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, 30, 259-278.
  20. Iovine, S., Marinoni, P., & Rossi, G. (2009). Religiosity and fundamentalism in their relation to some features of personality. A research on a Northern-Italian sample. In Osobowosc i religia / Personality and religion (pp. 183-195).
  21. Warszawa : Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Kardynala Stefana Wyszynskiego.
  22. Marsden, G.M., (1980). Fundamentalism and American culture: the shaping of twenteth-century evangelicalism 1870-1925. New York: Oxford University Press.
  23. Marty, M.E., & Appleby, R. (Eds., 1991-1995). The fundamentalism project (vols. 1-5). Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
  24. Roccas, S., Sagiv, L., Schwartz, S.H., & Knafo, A. (2002). The Big Five personality factors and personal values. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 28, 789-801. DOI: 10.1177/0146167202289008
  25. Rokeach, M. (1960). The open and closed mind. New York: Basic Books.
  26. Saroglou, V. (2002). Beyond dogmatism: the need for closure as related to religion. Mental Health, Religion and Culture, 5, 183-194. DOI: 10.1080/13674670210144130
  27. Saroglou, V., Delpierre, V., & Dernelle R. (2004). Values and religiosity: a metaanalysis of studies using Schwartz’s model. Personality and Individual Differences, 37, 721–734. DOI: 10.1016/j.paid.2003.10.005.Schwartz,S.H.(1992).Universalsinthecontentandstructureofvalues:theoreticaladvancesandempiricaltestsin20countries.InM.Zanna(Ed.),Advancesinexperimentalsocialpsychology,Vol.25(pp.1–65).Orlando,FL:AcademicPres
  28. Schwartz, S.H. (2006). Les valeurs de base de la personne: theorie, mesures et applications [Basic human values: theory, measurement, and applications]. Revue Française de Sociologie, 42, 249-288. DOI: 10.3917/rfs.474.0929
  29. Schwartz, S.H., & Huismans, S. (1995). Values priorities and religiosity in four western religions. Social Psychology Quarterly, 58, 88–107.
  30. Swatos, W.H. (1993). Fundamentalism in the Islamic world. Review of Religious Research, 35(1), 66-68.
  31. Tamney, J.B. (1996). Accounting for south Asian fundamentalism. Review of Religious Research, 37(4), 368-369.
  32. Waller, N.G., Kojetin, B.A., Bouchard, T.J., Lykken, D.T., & Tellegen, A. (1990). Genetic and environmental influences on religious interests, attitudes, and values: a study of twins reared apart and together. Psychological Science, 1(2), 138-142. DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-9280.1990.tb00083.x
  33. Williamson, P.W., Hood Jr, R.W., Ahmad, A., Sadiq, M., & Hill, P.C. (2010). The intratextual fundamentalism scale: cross-cultural application, validity evidence, and relationship with religious orientation and the big 5 factor markers. Mental Health, Religion & Culture, 13(7-8), 721-747. DOI: 10.1080/13674670802643047

  • Religious Fundamentalism between Traits and Values Leonardo Carlucci, Armin W. Geertz, Laura Picconi, Michela Balsamo, in The Open Psychology Journal /2021 pp.24
    DOI: 10.2174/1874350102114010024
  • Does a Fundamentalist Mindset Predict a State or Trait Anxiety? The Covariate Role of Dogmatism Leonardo Carlucci, Bashar Albaghli, Aristide Saggino, Michela Balsamo, in Journal of Religion and Health /2021 pp.1029
    DOI: 10.1007/s10943-020-01016-5

Leonardo Carlucci, Fondamentalismo religioso e valori personali: una lettura psicologica in "RICERCHE DI PSICOLOGIA " 2/2015, pp 377-389, DOI: 10.3280/RIP2015-002007