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Religion

Religious Development Across the Life Span

In the past few years, we have begun work using the Terman Life Cycle Study of Children with High Ability to examine the causes and outcomes of spiritual development over the life span. Thanks to funding from the John Templeton Foundation and the Metanexus Institute, we have been able to carry on with our work to study religious development and health across the life course.

NEW! McCullough, M. E., & Boker, S. M. (2007). Dynamical modeling for studying self-regulatory processes: An example from the study of religious development over the life span. In A. D. Ong and M. van Dulmen (Eds.), Handbook of methods in positive psychology (pp. 380-394). New York: Oxford. PDF

NEW! McCullough, M. E., & Polak, E. (2007). Change and stability during the third age: Longitudinal investigations of self-rated health and religiousness with the Terman sample. In J. B. James and P. Wink (Eds.), The crown of life: Dynamics of the early postretirement period (pp. 175-192). New York: Springer. PDF

McCullough, M. E., Enders, C. K., Brion, S. L., & Jain, A. R. (2005). The varieties of religious development in adulthood: A longitudinal investigation of religion and rational choice. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 89, 78-89. PDF

McCullough, M. E., Tsang, J., & Brion, S. (2003). Personality traits in adolescence as predictors of religiousness in early adulthood: Findings from the Terman Longitudinal Study. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 29, 980-991. PDF

Religion, Spirituality and Health

Scholars in the social sciences since Emile Durkheim have posited that religious involvement may influence the health and well-being of populations. In most cases, researchers have assumed (and found good evidence to suggest) that religiousness may provide social support, prescribe and proscribe behaviors that have health-relevant effects, and help to provide meaning and coherence to people's lives. All of these factors (and perhaps others) have been thought to eventuate in happiness, better mental health, and longer life for the religiously adherent. These are some of the topics we study.

McCullough, M. E., & Laurenceau, J. P. (2005). Religiousness and the trajectory of self-rated health across adulthood. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 31, 560-573. PDF

Kendler, K., Liu, X., Gardner, C. O., McCullough, M. E., & Prescott, C. A. (2003). Dimensions of religiosity and their relationship to lifetime psychiatric and substance abuse disorders. American Journal of Psychiatry, 160, 496-503. PDF

Smith, T. B., McCullough, M. E., & Poll, J. (2003). Religiousness and depression: Evidence for a main effect and the moderating influence of stressful life events. Psychological Bulletin, 129, 614-636. PDF

George, L. K., Larson, D. B., Koenig, H. G., & McCullough, M. E. (2000). Spirituality and health: What we know, what we need to know. Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology, 19, 102-116. PDF

Kilpatrick, S. D., & McCullough, M. E. (1999). Religion and spirituality in rehabilitation psychology. Rehabilitation Psychology, 44, 388-402. PDF

McCullough, M. E., Hoyt, W. T., Larson, D. B., Koenig, H. G., & Thoresen, C. E. (2000). Religious involvement and mortality: A meta-analytic review. Health Psychology, 19, 211-222. PDF (Here's Sloan and Bagiella's letter to the editor based on this piece, and our reply. PDF)

McCullough, M. E. (1999). Research on religion-accommodative counseling: Review and meta-analysis. Journal of Counseling Psychology, 46, 92-98. PDF

McCullough, M. E., & Larson, D. B. (1999). Prayer. In W. R. Miller (Ed.), Integrating spirituality into treatment: Resources for practitioners (pp. 85-110). Washington, D.C.: American Psychological Association. PDF

Measuring Religion

Worthington, E. L., Jr., Wade, N. G., Hight, T. L., Ripley, J. S., McCullough, M. E., Berry, J. W., Berry, J. T., Schmidt, M. M., Berry, J. T., Bursley, K. H., & O’Connor, L. (2003). The Religious Commitment Inventory-10: Development, refinement, and validation of a brief scale for research and counseling. Journal of Counseling Psychology, 50, 84-96. PDF