Paul J Watson

University of Tennessee at Chattanooga | Chatt · Department of Psychology

Amanah refers to the accountability of Muslims to their community. In Malaysian Muslim university students (N = 209), an Amanah Scale predicted a stronger sense of identity along with more adaptive religious and psychosocial functioning. Multiple regression analyses identified Accountability to Society as especially influential, but Accountability...

This first analysis of the Religious Fundamentalism Scale in Iran further examined findings that conservative religious commitments have positive adjustment implications outside the West. Religious Fundamentalism in a sample of 385 Iranian university students displayed direct relationships with Muslim religiosity and spirituality and correlated pos...

For over three decades, an Ideological Surround Model ( ISM ) has pursued theoretical and methodological innovations designed to enhance the ‘truth’ and ‘objectivity’ of research into psychology and religion. The foundational argument of the ISM is that psychology as well as religion unavoidably operates within the limits of an ideological surround...

Self-compassion is natural, trainable and multi-faceted human capacity. To date there has been little research into the role of culture in influencing the conceptual structure of the underlying construct, the relative importance of different facets of self-compassion, nor its relationships to cultural values. This study employed a cross-cultural de...

Assumptions associated with Rational-Emotive Behavior Therapy (REBT) suggest that self-compassion, but not self-esteem, should be incompatible with irrational beliefs and with the emotional disturbances that they produce. In this study, 184 university students responded to a self-compassion scale along with measures of irrational beliefs, self-este...

While research documents conservative religious tendencies towards a fear (“phobia”) of the stranger (“xeno”), this investigation sought to evaluate possible additional potentials for a love (“philia”) of the stranger (“xeno”). Procedures explored a preliminary measure of religious xenophilia that defined xenophilic love and xenophilic grace factor...

Previous research indicates that spirituality expressed in tradition-specific terms may initiate, invigorate, and integrate Muslim religious commitments, suggesting a 3-I Model of Religious Spirituality. In a test of this model, Islamic seminarians, university students, and office workers in Iran (N = 604) responded to Muslim Experiential Religious...

Development of a Greater Jihad Scale sought to record “jihad” as a Muslim spiritual struggle. Pakistani madrassa and university students responded to items that described Self Jihad as a struggle against corruptions within the self and Societal Jihad as an effort to bring social life into conformity with Islamic ideals. Greater Jihad factors correl...

Religious groups outside the West have displayed a positive correlation between faith and intellect-oriented reflection in contrast to the negative relationship found with American Christians. This study extended the analysis to Pakistani Muslims. University students (N = 180) responded to religious reflection scales along with measures of religiou...

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...

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 M...

Weber’s association of a work ethic with Protestantism has been extended to religions, including Islam, more generally. Managers and staff in a bank and department store in Tehran responded to Muslim religiousness measures along with the multidimensional work ethics profile (MWEP). The MWEP is a 7-factor instrument that records Weber’s interpretati...

This study examined religious-spiritual types in Iran by comparing seminary and university students on self-compassion, self-forgiveness, and other measures of religious and psychological functioning. Islamic seminarians (N = 198) more frequently self-identified as both religious and spiritual or as religious only. University students (N = 302) mor...

Efforts to describe an Islamic psychology of religion must include the relationship that Muslims maintain with God through supplication. The Turkish theologian and scholar Said Nursi (1877–1960) offered useful theoretical guidance for understanding this issue. His perspective rested on the assumption that supplication finds its motivation in humani...

Iranian teachers (N = 250) responded to Muslim attitude and spirituality measures in a project testing the hypothesis that Muslim personality functioning will reflect beliefs in the beneficence of society and a consequent need to restrain personal desires. Muslim attitudes were especially noteworthy in displaying negative relationships with disturb...

Psychological aggression against wives is a social problem in all societies. To analyze possible predictive factors of psychological aggression against wives, this study examined 398 women selected through multi-stage stratified sampling techniques. Research participants responded to the Conflict Tactics Scale, questions about childhood insult expe...

This study examined the religious and psychological implications of religious coping in Iran. University students (N = 224) responded to the Brief Positive and Negative Religious Coping Scales along with measures of Religious Orientation, Integrative Self-Knowledge, Self-Control, Mindfulness, Self-Compassion, Self-Esteem, Guilt, Shame, and Self-Cri...

Pakistani Muslim university students (N = 207) displayed Personal Distress, Public Distress, and Personal Defeat Reactions to Terrorism. All three reactions predicted poorer mental health with Personal Defeat being especially disturbed in its adjustment implications. In line with the assumptions of coping theory, scores on the Negative Religious Co...

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 s...

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...

The ideological surround model (ISM) of the relationship between religion and the social sciences uses innovations in standard research methods to demonstrate how the challenges of postmodern relativism can be addressed. In this project, ISM methodologies evaluated the Post-traumatic Growth Inventory-Short Form (PTGI-SF), a measure relevant to posi...

This study extended the analysis of attachments to God to Islam. Shiite Muslim university students from Iran (N = 243) responded to the Attachment to God Inventory, religious orientation scales, and an array of mental health variables that included empirical markers of an Iranian Muslim personality ideal called the “Perfect Man” (Ensān-e Kāmel). An...

Religious Reflection Scales yield cross-cultural data suggesting that religious traditions have potentials to integrate intellect with faith. This investigation extended analysis of that possibility to Sunni Muslim university students in Malaysia (N =211) and also examined the hypothesis that Islamic commitments to knowledge (Ilm) promote religious...

As interpreted within an ideological surround model of the relationship between religion and science, Christian Psychology essentially works from the assumption that Christianity and contemporary psychology are incommensurable. This means that the two rest upon different ultimate standards and thus operate in terms of incommensurable though not who...

According to the Religious Openness Hypothesis, negative correlations between Faith and Intellect Oriented Religious Reflection in the United States reveal a defensive fundamentalist response to secularization in the West. In an exploration of this hypothesis, 350 undergraduates responded to Christian Religious Reflection, Religious Fundamentalism,...

According to the Religious Openness Hypothesis, a negative relationship between Faith and Intellect Oriented Religious Reflection in American Christians reveals a defensive fundamentalist response to Western secularization that inhibits religious and psychological openness. The present study offered one test of that hypothesis by examining Christia...

In Christian samples, Faith and Intellect Oriented Reflection correlate positively in Iran but negatively in the United States. The hypothesis of this investigation was that this American effect reflects reaction to a secularism that is influential in the United States but not in Iran. In a sample of American undergraduates (N =425), a Defense agai...

Corrected abstract: Commentators reacted to “Faithful Translation, Ideological Perspectives, and Dimensions of Christian Psychology beyond Postmodernism.” This paper responds to those commentators.

Christian communities of the future will necessarily confront the challenges of a postmodern linguistic relativity that reflects the increasingly diverse normative influences of globalization. Empirical procedures sensitive to the influences of ideology may be essential in Christian attempts to understand and to be understood more accurately within...

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 positive...

Theory and research suggest that an internalization of psychological " structure " related to self-esteem may mediate relationships of Maladaptive Narcissism with higher and Adaptive Narcissism with lower Anger. In the present study (N = 623), Self-Esteem and Contingency of Self-Worth Scales served as presumed indices of the presence or absence of...

This project applied a bifactor model, which specifies a general factor that accounts for the common variance among all scale items, and group factors that reflect additional common variance among clusters of items. This general factor is designated as “M” because of a presumption in the research literature that its origins are to be found in metho...

This investigation examined Pakistani Muslim understandings of the animal sacrifice that occurs during Eid-ul-Adha at the end of the Hajj. Pakistani university students (N = 156) responded to a number of items expressing possible interpretations of this ritual. A Faithful Sacrifice factor operationalized sincere religious reasons for the sacrifice...

ABSTRACT Married Iranian couples (N = 210) responded to the Integrative Self-Knowledge Scale along with a measure of marital satisfaction, the International Personality Item Pool (IPIP) Big Five, and an index of interpersonal problems. Integrative self-knowledge correlated positively with marital satisfaction, positively with all but the extraversi...

This study clarified coping resources that might influence the stress experienced by family members responsible for the care of cancer patients. Informal family caregivers (N=112) responded to the Kingston Caregiver Stress Scale, the Coping Strategies Inventory-Short Form, the Multidimensional Scale of Perceived Social Support, and a new Karachi Fa...

Research in the West identifies transliminality as a largely problematic form of consciousness that is a common thread running through mystical and religious experience. In a non-Western cultural context, Iranian university and Islamic seminary students responded to measures of transliminality, mystical experience, religious commitment, and psychol...

The Religious Openness Hypothesis argues that traditional religions have resources for integrating intellect with faith. In a test of this hypothesis, Hindu graduate students in India (N = 320) responded to Hindu religious reflection, attitudes toward Hinduism, religious schema, religious orientation, and psychological openness scales. Faith and in...

In the more individualistic West, guilt promotes and shame interferes with empathic sensitivity. This investigation sought to determine if similar results would appear in the presumably more interdependent cultural context of Iran. Iranian university students ( N = 220) responded to guilt and shame scales along with measures of other-oriented empat...

Abstract Iranian seminarians and general university students responded to a Muslim Experiential Religiousness measure of Islamic spirituality. This instrument correlated positively with the Attitude toward Islam Scale, two types of Islamic Religious Reflection, Afterlife Motivation, and Basic Needs Satisfaction. Muslim Experiential Religiousness...

Previous research examining Iranian university students suggested that an Extrinsic Cultural Religious Orientation may be more important than an Extrinsic Social Religious motivation in maintaining Muslim religious commitments. The present project demonstrated that a similar conclusion seemed applicable to the largely Christian commitments of Ameri...

Self-regulation presumably rests upon multiple processes that include an awareness of ongoing self-experience, enduring self-knowledge and self-control. The present investigation tested this multi-process model using the Five-Facet Mindfulness Questionnaire (FFMQ) and the Integrative Self-Knowledge and Brief Self-Control Scales. Using a sample of 1...

Modernist confidence in objective reason has given way to postmodern assumptions that rationality always reflects community-specific standards that can find no indisputable foundation in objectivity. Within postmodern cultural conditions, the church will need to transition beyond the potential relativism of incommensurable communal rationalities an...

Spirituality can be described as a search for the sacred. A recent Iranian research program operationalized an Islamic search for the sacred in a Muslim Experiential Religiousness Scale. Based upon Qur᾿ānic perspectives, this instrument expressed Muslim spirituality in terms of efforts of the faithful to submit to and get closer to God in a loving...

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...

According to the Religious Openness Hypothesis, the religious and psychological openness of American Christians is obscured by a defensive ghettoization of thought associated with a Religious Fundamentalist Ideological Surround and can be discovered instead within a Biblical Foundationalist Ideological Surround. A test of this claim examined Religi...

Investigations into Muslim psychology sometimes rely on measures emphasizing religious attitudes, with the Muslim Attitudes toward Religion (MAR) scale being an example. To capture the experiential aspects of Islamic religiosity, a recently developed Muslim Experiential Religiousness (MER) scale recorded an experienced submission to, love of, and c...

Behavior elicited from the lateral hypothalamus of rats became stronger as a function of experience with stimulation and available goal objects, and changes in latency and duration were the most sensitive measures of this response emergence. The strength of an elicited behavior was not diminished by a period of time-off from stimulation, indicating...

Rats were presented with.1% (w/v) quinine-adulterated water after they had been predeprived of food down to 70% of their ad lib body weight (PD-Q group) or after no predeprivation experience (ND-Q group). Both groups initially reduced their food intake and lost weight. Following adaptation to the adulterated fluid, PD-Q animals displayed a relative...

In numerous studies conducted in Western societies, shame as measured by the Test of Self-Conscious Affect (TOSCA) has correlated with maladjustment whereas the TOSCA Guilt Scale has predicted adjustment. The present investigation sought to determine if such linkages would also appear in the Muslim cultural context of Iran. Iranian university stude...

Summary This investigation analyzed Islamic spirituality as measured by a Muslim Experiential Religiousness Scale. Iranian university and seminary students (N = 351) responded to this instrument along with the Psychological Measure of Islamic Religiousness (PMIR) and Perceived Stress and Self-Esteem scales. Muslim Experiential Religiousness correla...

In a sample of Indian university students, the Attitude towards Hinduism Scale correlated positively with the Intrinsic and Extrinsic Personal Religious Orientations, exhibited an inverse relationship with depression, and predicted greater self-esteem and religious collective self-esteem. Extrinsic Social and Quest Orientations displayed no linkage...

Fluid and food intakes of Fischer 344 and Sprague-Dawley rats were compared in the 24 h after treatment with polyethylene glycol (PEG), and subjects were presented with drinking supplies of physiological saline or tap water. As in previous investigations, Fischer rats displayed relatively lower levels of ingestive behavior, a pattern that remained...

Glucoprivic responsivity after administration of 500 mg/kg of 2-deoxy-D-glucose (2DG) was evaluated in seven rats adapted to a 0.1% (w/v) quinine-adulterated water supply. Quinine subjects failed to display a significant drug-induced increase in eating, and 2DG actively inhibited their drinking behavior. Significant but reduced glucoprivic responsi...

Comparative rationality analysis formally examines the incommensurable social rationalities that theoretically exist within religions and the social sciences according to the ideological surround model (ISM) of the psychology of religion. This study extended these procedures to a new cultural context: 220 Iranian university students responded to th...

Summary Research suggests that religious beliefs may both help and hinder how Muslims cope. In a Pakistani sample, the Positive Islamic Coping, Islamic Identity, and Extra-Prayer Commitment factors from the Psychological Measure of Islamic Religiousness correlated negatively with Perceived Stress and positively with Mental Well-Being, Intrinsic Rel...

Previous efforts to demonstrate the coping benefits of Muslim beliefs have yielded ambiguous outcomes. With a sample of 200 Pakistani adults, this project used the Islamic Positive Religious Coping and Identification (IPRCI) subscale within the Psychological Measure of Islamic Religiousness (PMIR) to examine relationships with the experience and be...

The current study validated the three-factor, eight-facet model of Hood's Mysticism Scale and explored mean differences in mysticism with 330 indigenous Chinese Christian and 323 non-Christian participants. Confirmatory factor analysis demonstrated good fit for the overall Chinese sample and established measurement invariance of the instrument acro...

Although a Buddhist construct, self-compassion may have implications for understanding psychological adjustment cross-culturally. In Iranian Muslims, the Self-Compassion Scale correlated positively with integrative self-knowledge, self-esteem, and basic need satisfactions and negatively with depression and anxiety. Negative linkages with depression...

This study examined whether faith and intellect-oriented religious reflection would be polarised in Iranian Muslins as they appear to be in American Christians. Iranian students at a university in Tehran and at an Islamic seminary in Qom responded to Faith and Intellect-Oriented Islamic Religious Reflection measures along with scales recording vari...

This study examined the possibility that smoking may interfere with Muslim commitments in general and with the experience and behaviour of Ramadan in particular. During Ramadan, a sample of 29 smoking and 46 non-smoking Pakistani men responded to measures of smoking, Religious Orientation, Religious Interest, Positive and Negative Ramadan Experienc...

This study used a self-regulation framework to analyze psychological characteristics of coronary heart disease (CHD) and cancer patients in the previously unexamined cultural context of Iran. Consistent with research conducted elsewhere, Iranian CHD patients reported higher and cancer patients reported lower anger. CHD patients also were higher in...

According to the Harmony of Purpose model, teleological coherence is a unifying principle of immunological, neurological, and psychological functioning. The specific assumption is that these systems work together to promote the "telos," goals, or ends of the individual by differentiating between self and non-self. An Integrative Self-Knowledge Scal...

Pakistanis suffering from major medical problems and non-patient controls responded to two factors from the Psychological Measure of Islamic Religiousness that operationalised religious coping. Punishing Allah Reappraisal correlated positively with Poorer Psychological Functioning and External Control and negatively with Self-Adjustment. Factor ana...

This study explores the phenomenological structure of mystical experience among 139 Chinese Pure Land and Chan Buddhist monks and nuns. Semi‐structured interviews, thematic coding, and statistical analyses demonstrated that Stace's common facets of mysticism as measured by Hood's Mysticism Scale (M Scale) successfully described Buddhist experience...

In the study of mysticism the debate has centered on whether a universal experiential core exists regardless of religious interpretation. The current investigation combines Jamesian empiricist and social constructivist perspectives to argue that stable experiential facets load variously on factors to construct local interpretations. Local interpret...

Among other things, the Ideological Surround Model (ISM) argues that greater objectivity can be achieved through an empiricism that brings emic religious and etic social scientific perspectives into formal dialog. In this project, 421 undergraduates responded to a Christian Religious Reflection Scale along with an etic Religious Fundamentalism and...

According to the ideological surround model of research, a more “objective” psychology of religion requires efforts to bring etic social scientific and emic religious perspectives into formal dialog. This study of 245 Iranian university students illustrated how the dialogical validity of widely used etic measures of religion can be assessed by exam...

The aim of this article is to assess the measurement invariance of the Bermond-Vorst Alexithymia Questionnaire (BVAQ) in U.S. Anglo (n = 490) and U.S. Hispanic ( n = 379) samples of college students. The BVAQ items demonstrated invariance of the factor loadings, the latent item intercepts, and unique factor variances. However, Hispanics had higher...

Self-knowledge is a Muslim psychological ideal, but social theory suggests that the dynamics of narcissism and self-esteem may challenge the stability of Muslim society. In Iranian university students, an Integrative Self-Knowledge Scale displayed relationships with narcissism, self-esteem, and empathy that reflected relative mental health; and the...

Within the Ideological Surround Model of the social sciences and religion, so-called “universal” perspectives within the psychology of religion can dialogically clarify and be clarified by the “particular” elements of Muslim (and other forms of religious) commitment. This study developed new scales for operationalizing the experience and behavior o...

Especially in Muslim communities, extrinsic motivations for being religious may include the use of religion to promote societal well‐being. Iranian university students responded to statements designed to express an extrinsic cultural religious orientation. Four factors described this motivation, including Family and Social Order, Disorder Avoidance...

Previous research has established that awareness of self-experience is a stress resistance resource. The present study conducted an analysis of measures that record different aspects of self-awareness (private self-consciousness, mindfulness, and integrative self-knowledge) to explain this stress-resistance effect in a sample of Iranian university...

In theory, mindfulness has a role to play in resolving intercultural conflicts. This suggestion rests upon the relatively untested presumption that mindfulness operates similarly across cultures. In a test of this presumption, university students from two countries that are often in conflict at the governmental level, Iran (N = 723) and the United...

The Pakistani Religious Coping Practices Scale was created to specifically record Muslim religious approaches to coping. A sample of 129 Pakistani university students responded to Urdu versions of this new instrument along with the Brief Religious Coping (RCOPE) Scale, single-item assessments of religious orientation and religious interest, and sca...

Twenty-six children diagnosed as learning disabled and displaying hypo responsive postrotary nystagmus were divided on the basis of four measures of vestibular-proprioceptive function commonly employed by therapists to evaluate reflex integration and postural mechanism. Data analysis revealed that learning disabled children combined hypo responsive...

The southern California Postrotary Nystagmus Test (SCNPT) was administered to 52 children who were asked to sketch human figure drawings (HFD) during assessment procedures designed to determine learning disability and perceptual motor dysfunction. Analysis of these data confirmed the hypothesis that children with hypo responsive nystagmus (PRN) dur...

We collected data from a predominately Anglo American student sample in the Southeastern United States and a predominately Hispanic student sample in the Southwestern United States. Along with an assessment of internal consistency reliability, we examined measurement invariance of the Toronto Alexithymia Scale-20 (TAS-20) using confirmatory factor...

In three Iranian samples, the brief Post-Critical Beliefs Scale is administered along with an array of psychological and religious measures. In efforts to explore the potential of the dialogical model, researchers administered Intrinsic, Extrinsic, and Quest Religious Orientation measures to both Iranian and Pakistani Muslim samples. These investig...

In this study, the self-reported mystical experience of Muslims was correlated with constructs relevant to positive psychology. Iranian university students responded to the Extrovertive, Introvertive, and Religious Interpretation factors of the Mysticism Scale; to the Basic Need Satisfaction and Mindfulness measures associated with Self-Determinati...

Hopelessness is central to prominent mental health problems within American Indian (AI) communities. Apaches living on a reservation in Arizona responded to diverse expressions of hope along with Hopelessness, Personal Self-Esteem, and Collective Self-Esteem scales. An Apache Hopefulness Scale expressed five themes of hope and correlated negatively...

The Survey of Personal Beliefs (SPB) is a frequently used measure of irrational beliefs, but can display less than ideal psychometric properties. In the first study of the present project, the five subscales of the SPB correlated as expected with higher levels of perfectionism, shame, and guilt. A confirmatory factor analysis, nevertheless, reveale...

This study sought to clarify the importance and cross-cultural relevance of associations between generalized perceived stress and depression. Also tested was the hypothesis that perceived stress would correlate more strongly with anxiety than with depression, whereas control would be more predictive of depression than of anxiety. Relationships betw...