Matthieu Van Pachterbeke’s research while affiliated with Catholic University of America and other places

Based on theorization on the four basic dimensions of religiousness, Believing, Bonding, Behaving, and Belonging, and corresponding cognitive, emotional, moral, and social motives and functions of religion, we developed a measure and investigated cross-cultural consistency of the four dimensions as well interindividual and cross-cultural variability. Data were collected from 14 countries varying in religious heritage: Catholicism, Protestantism, Orthodox Christianity, Judaism, Islam, and Buddhism/Taoism ( N = 3,218). Beyond their high interrelation and common personality correlates, that is, agreeableness and conscientiousness, the four dimensions were distinct across cultures and religions, less interrelated in Eastern Asia compared to the West, differentially preferred across cultural zones, and characterized by distinct features. Believing and bonding, to which spirituality was primarily related, were preferred in Western secular societies. Behaving and belonging, valued in religious societies, were importantly related to fundamentalism, authoritarianism, and low openness. Bonding and behaving were primordial in, respectively, Israel and Turkey. Furthermore, belonging (marked by extraversion) and bonding were uniquely associated with increased life satisfaction, whereas believing was uniquely related to existential quest and decreased life satisfaction. Thus, the multidimensionality of religiousness seems deeply rooted in distinct psychological dispositions evident at both the individual and the cultural levels.

Objective: In our postmodern society, people tend to abandon conventional medicine for alternative medical systems such as acupuncture. What are the reasons for this defiance regarding modern rationality and individualist success? Who turns to acupuncture? Method: In this study (N = 89), we examined whether world views opposed to the predominance of rationality (i.e. mistrust of science, spirituality, paranormal beliefs) and individualist success or consumerism (i.e. power, achievement, and materialism), typically associated with the postmodern era, might explain this attraction toward acupuncture. Participants were recruited through forums on the internet interested in CAM and completed the questionnaire voluntarily. Results: Attraction to acupuncture related negatively with materialism and achievement as well as positively with spirituality, paranormal beliefs, and mistrust in science. Spirituality, paranormal beliefs, and low achievement were the main predictors of attraction to acupuncture and explained 44% of the variance. The mistrust in science mediated the relationship between spiritual and paranormal beliefs and the attraction toward acupuncture. Low achievement explained the link between low materialism and positive attitudes toward acupuncture. Conclusion: The general mistrust of our rational and individualist modern society is indeed an important predictor of attraction toward acupuncture, besides demographic variables.

Being open to questioning and changing one’s own existential beliefs and worldviews is an understudied epistemological tendency we call “existential quest.” We found that existential quest is a specific construct that can be distinguished from related constructs such as searching for meaning in life, readiness to question proreligious beliefs (i.e., religious quest), need for closure, and dogmatism. In five studies, we tested the psychometric qualities of a newly developed 9-item scale and the relationship of existential quest with individual difference variables reflecting ideological and epistemological needs (such as authoritarianism or regulatory focus) and behavioral tendencies (myside bias in an argument generation task). Existential quest showed incremental validity over and above established constructs regarding the prediction of relevant cognitive biases and empathy. The findings indicate the relevance of existential quest as an epistemological construct that seems particularly interesting for research in the developing field of existential psychology.

Authoritarianism is a stable construct in terms of individual differences (social attitudes based on personality and values), but its manifestations and behavioral outcomes may depend on contextual factors. In the present experiment, we investigated whether authoritarianism is sensitive to religious influences in predicting rigid morality. Specifically, we investigated whether authoritarians, after supraliminal religious priming, would show, in hypothetical moral dilemmas, preference for impersonal societal norms even at the detriment of interpersonal, care-based prosociality toward proximal persons and acquaintances in need. The results confirmed the expectations, with a small effect size for the religious priming × authoritarianism interaction. In addition, these results were specific to participants' authoritarianism and not to their individual religiosity. The interaction between authoritarian dispositions and religious ideas may constitute a powerful combination leading to behaviors that are detrimental for the well-being and the life of others, even proximal people, in the name of abstract deontology. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

The wearing of the Islamic veil by Muslim women has become a source of tensions in Western European countries. In order to investigate majority members’ attitudes towards the veil, the present two studies (Ns = 166 and 147), carried out in Belgium, integrated three lines of research that have focused on (a) the role of subtle prejudice/racism on the host society's attitudes towards immigrants, (b) the role of values on acculturation, and (c) the role of religious attitudes on prejudice. Results revealed the effects of subtle prejudice/racism, values (self-enhancement values and security versus universalism), and religious attitudes (literal anti-religious thinking versus spirituality), in predicting greater levels of anti-veil attitudes beyond the effects of other related variables such as age and political conservatism. The studies also suggest the importance of including religious attitudes as part of the intergroup-relation factors that predict attitudes towards immigrants, at least with regard to specific components of intercultural relations.

Previous research has shown that people tend to infra-humanize outgroup members by being reluctant to attribute them secondary, uniquely human, emotions (Demoulin et al., 2004; Leyens et al., 2000). In the present paper, we extend the infra-humanization theory by arguing that people, going to the opposite pole of the humanness continuum, have also the tendency to supra-humanize some supernatural entities. Two exploratory studies focusing at the explicit perceptions of God and the self give support to these assumptions. The several consequences of gods' supra-humanization for social cognition are discussed.