Luke Galen

• Ph.D.
• Professor (Full) at Grand Valley State University

The article, “Religiously/Spiritually Involved, but in Doubt or Disbelief—Why? Healthy?” (Mrdjenovich in J Relig Health. 10.1007/s10943-018-0711-2, 2018) addressed why subsets of Nones would engage in religious activities. While the subject matter of Mrdjenovich’s work is important and understudied, several problematic conclusions about the nonreli...

To what extent do supernatural beliefs, group affiliation, and social interaction produce values and behaviors that benefit others, i.e., 'prosociality'? Addressing this question involves multiple variables interacting within complex social networks that shape and constrain the beliefs and behaviors of individuals. We examine the relationships amon...

Bloomsbury Religion in North America

Previous research has suggested that religion is associated not only with self-reported prosociality, but also with observable behaviors as manifested in standard economic game interactions. However, such studies have often left key elements uncontrolled, leading to incomplete interpretations of the influences of religiosity. The present article in...

A commentary on Mrdjenovich’s (2018) article "Religiously/spiritually involved, but in doubt or disbelief—why? Healthy?"

We investigate the relationships among individuals' religiosity (or secularity), affiliation with like-minded religious others, volunteerism, and trust and tolerance. Using data analysis of the World Values Survey, we pose and answer research questions about the types of individuals who are the most trusting, the most tolerant, and who volunteer th...

Greater attention to secular and nonreligious individuals has provided much-needed balance as well as alternative interpretations of commonly held assumptions regarding religiosity/spirituality (R/S). Contrary to the theory that R/S provides unique benefits in areas such as prosociality and mental health, analogous secular mechanisms exist. The con...

Greater attention to secular and nonreligious individuals has provided much-needed balance as well as alternative interpretations of commonly-held assumptions regarding religiosity/ spirituality (R/S). Contrary to the theory that R/S provides unique benefits in areas such as prosociality and mental health, analogous secular mechanisms exist. The co...

Subjective religious and spiritual experiences (RS) are believed by many to be reliable indicators of external agency. A set of related phenomena are used to support this view that typically involve intuitions or attributions of mental interaction or experiences with RS agents. The present review integrates empirical findings from the fields of the...

Subjective religious and spiritual experiences (RS) are believed by many to be reliable indicators of external agency. A set of related phenomena are used to support this view that typically involve intuitions or attributions of mental interaction or experiences with RS agents. The present review integrates empirical findings from the fields of the...

There is a commonly held assumption that religiosity/spirituality (R/S) reflects unique causal mechanisms in areas such as prosociality, mental health, and in the debate regarding the evolutionary origins of religion. However, because most studies are unequipped to rule out the possibility that R/S features are actually attributable to nonreligious...

Many phenomena frequently attributed to the effects of religiosity (or to its absence) are, in reality, attributable to secular mechanisms. This can be observed in the domains of personal well-being and prosociality. Despite the commonly held theory that religious beliefs produce benefits such as greater morality and mental health, these associatio...

Many phenomena frequently attributed to the effects of religiosity (or to its absence) are, in reality, attributable to secular mechanisms. This can be observed in the domains of personal well-being and prosociality. Despite the commonly held theory that religious beliefs produce benefits such as greater morality and mental health, these associatio...

Big Gods are described as having a “prosocial” effect. However, this conflates parochialism (group cohesion) with cooperation extended to strangers or out-group members. An examination of the cited experimental studies indicates that religion is actually associated with increased within-group parochialism, rather than extended or universal prosocia...

The majority of social science research on religiosity and associated variables has tended to focus on putative beneficial aspects, implying that the absence of religious belief is accompanied by liabilities. However, a closer examination of the literature reveals that the mechanisms of most beneficial associations with religiosity are attributable...

Previous research has suggested that religious belief is associated with a range of prosocial behaviors such as social embeddedness and generosity. However, this literature has often conflated belief in God with group involvement and failed to control for demographic and social network effects. Rather than assessing prosociality by comparing religi...

A religious prosociality stereotype exists such that religiosity and prosociality are presumed to be positively associated, as evidenced by proxy measures such as personality traits. However, studies using self- and peer-ratings of Agreeableness and Conscientiousness have not simultaneously controlled for the religiosity of the participant and the...

Numerous authors have suggested that religious belief has a positive association, possibly causal, with prosocial behavior. This article critiques evidence regarding this "religious prosociality" hypothesis from several areas of the literature. The extant literature on religious prosociality is reviewed including domains of charity, volunteering, m...

This reply explores issues raised in comments by Myers (2012) and Saroglou (2012) on Galen (2012) regarding whether religiosity has any influence on prosociality. Areas of contention include (a) the distinction between religious belief and other influences, mainly the socialization effects of group behavior; (b) whether behavior largely restricted...

While research has shown that religious individuals are perceived as being more moral than the nonreligious, the present studies suggest that these findings are affected by in-group bias. Participants low and high in religious fundamentalism (RF) were asked to form an impression of a target's moral and social dimensions. The target's religious iden...

We examined the perception of deserved outcomes associated with religious fundamentalism (RF). Interviews with videotaped targets varied in target's religiosity, responsibility, and outcome valence (good/bad). Participants either low (LF) or high (HF) on RF formulated an impression of how deserving a target was for a situational outcome. Participan...

Previous studies demonstrating a positive relationship between religiosity and mental health have sampled from a highly religious general population with little differentiation between weak religiosity and non-religiosity. Church members are typically compared with non-religious unaffiliated individuals, thus confounding belief with group effects (...

Previous studies linking personality and social integration with religiosity conflate the weakly religious with the completely nonreligious, and religious belief with group membership, leading to spurious associations. The present study characterizes the growing nonreligious population by comparing church and secular group members on personality ch...

Outpatient medical detoxification has become an increasingly common form of treatment for mild to moderate alcohol withdrawal, yet few studies have examined this phenomenon from the patient's perspective. Therefore, we reviewed Patient Satisfaction Survey (PSS) results from each of 57 alcohol-dependent patients who successfully completed a course o...

Those with differing levels of religious fundamentalism (RF) may be selective in their memory for religious information. In Study 1, participants read a text about money or sex, with a judgmental or not-judgmental message. Higher RF was associated with more accurate recall and fewer intrusions. In Study 2, participants high or low in RF read texts...

Several different mechanisms have been proposed to account for the consistent but moderate inverse relationship between religiosity and drinking, ranging from the direct proscriptions against alcohol in various faiths to social learning based on parental upbringing. Alcohol expectancies and drinking motives may be more proximal cognitive mechanisms...

The purpose of this investigation was to examine the predictive utility of the stages-of-change scales of the University of Rhode Island Change Assessment (URICA; E. A. McConnaughy, J. O. Prochaska, & W. F. Velicer, 1983) questionnaire in a heroin-addicted polysubstance-abusing treatment sample. Ninety-six participants completed the URICA at the be...

This study examined the validity of classifying substance abusers based on temperament and dependence severity, and expanded the scope of typology differences to proximal determinants of use (e.g., expectancies, motives). Patients were interviewed about substance use, depression, and family history of alcohol and drug abuse. Self-report instruments...

Completion rates for outpatient opioid detoxification with clonidine generally range from 20-40%, but few studies have examined the correlates of successful completion. Of 29 consecutive patients, we compared those who completed detoxification with clonidine (n=12) to those who did not (n=17). Patients who completed treatment were significantly (p<...

Based on gender, we compared demographics, clinical characteristics, and completion rates for outpatient detoxification from alcohol, using oxazepam in conjunction with an intensive day treatment program. Among 64 consecutive patients, nearly half were female. Women were significantly more likely than men to be Medicaid recipients, to have received...

Although prior research has demonstrated the utility of both alcohol expectancies and drinking motives in the prediction of alcohol use and problems, the specific relationship between these domains has not been examined in a clinical sample. One-hundred, forty-seven veterans on an inpatient substance abuse unit completed questionnaires measuring al...

Antisocial personality disorder (ASPD) may predict poor prognosis but gender/sociopathy relationships to prognosis remain unclear. This study investigated the effects of ASPD upon psychiatric and substance-related outcomes among 235 addiction treatment center outpatients. Prevalence rates for ASPD were similar for males (16%) and females (22%). At...

This study sought to establish the validity of the Cocaine Effect Expectancy Questionnaire (CEEQ), and the Marijuana Effect Expectancy Questionnaire (MEEQ) in discriminating between patterns of drug use in a clinical population. Prior research with these questionnaires has involved primarily nonclinical samples. Expectancy literature has yielded am...

The relationship of temperament to different patterns and types of alcohol abuse has received much attention over the last decade in order to provide clues to matching patients optimally to treatment strategies. The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship of temperament with a number of relevant substance abuse characteristics in a su...

The relationship of temperament to different patterns and types of alcohol abuse has received much attention over the last decade in order to provide clues to matching patients optimally to treatment strategies. The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship of temperament with a number of relevant substance abuse characteristics in a su...

To test the hypothesis that two temperament scales (Novelty Seeking and Harm Avoidance) are differentially related to alcohol expectancies and drinking patterns, 140 adolescents from an inpatient psychiatric facility completed several self-report questionnaires measuring temperament, alcohol expectancies, and alcohol consumption. Moderated multiple...

Th e present study examined the relationship among religious denomination, fundamentalism, belief about human origins, gender, and support for animal rights. Eighty-two college under-graduates filled out a set of 3 questionnaires: Th e Religious Fundamentalism Scale (Altemeyer & Hunsberger, 2004), beliefs about human origins (creationism, intellige...

he nonreligious segment of the population is not only increasing but is also increasingly visible in the public square. Still, self-described religious believers constitute the vast majority of the American population, and so more attention has been paid by social scientists and survey re- searchers to distinctions such as religious denomination (s...

Cognitive theories of alcohol use have suggested that information pertinent to an individuals' experience with alcohol is acquired and stored in a semantic network of expectancies regarding the effects of alcohol. Semantic priming using a lexical decision task has been used to access memory processes within a semantic network. The present study inv...