Fraser Watts
Biographic Data
| ID | 270561 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Fraser Watts |
| GIVEN NAMES | Fraser |
| FAMILY NAME | Watts |
| SIGNATURE | WATTS F |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Lincoln |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-0717-0259 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 47 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 14 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 43 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 4 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1973 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2024 |
| H-INDEX | 2 |
Shamanic and doctrinal
Robin Dunbar’s How Religion Evolved and Why It Endures rehabilitates the long-standing anthropo- logical view that religion evolved in two phases. The first, shamanic phase of religion consisted mainly of trance-dancing practices in hunter-gatherer societies, followed by a later stage in which beliefs about gods became more elaborate. Dunbar dates the transition to this later phase of “doctrinal” reli- gion as coming in with the agrarian settleme…
Bending and bonding
The social contribution of an urban cathedral
Coventry Cathedral was bombed in 1940; the new cathedral, consecrated in 1962, was in many ways an exceptional cathedral, reflecting the outstanding architecture of the building, its gifted leadership, and its commitment to reconciliation. This paper focuses on the analysis of the problems of urban society, and the role of cathedrals in them, developed in Coventry Cathedral in the 1960s. The argument developed by Provost Williams was that urbanis…
Religious worship online
This article examines the experience of online worship among 13 participants ‘attending’ virtual services in Cambridge. We focus upon an online formal Eucharistic service and a more informal Sunday evening non-Eucharistic service. After providing an overview of the literature on online religion, more specifically the possibility of a virtual religious community and the performance of online Eucharist, we present data from semi-structured intervie…
Jonathan Jong, Experimenting with Religion
Is There 'Spiritual Intelligence'? An Evaluation of Strong and Weak Proposals
The debate about whether, and in what sense, there is 'spiritual intelligence' remains unresolved. We suggest it will be helpful to make a distinction between strong and weak versions of the claim. The strong version proposes that there is a separate and distinct spiritual intelligence that meets the criteria set out by Howard Gardner in his 'multiple intelligences' framework. This involves evidence from neuroscience, evolutionary psychology, cog…
Health Help-Seeking Behaviour in Spiritual Healing Practice
Exploring the relationship between church worship, social bonding and moral values
Religion is often understood to play a positive role in shaping moral attitudes among believers. We assessed the relationship between church members’ levels of felt connectedness to their respective congregations and perceived similarity in personal and congregational moral values, and whether there was a relationship between these and the amount of time spent in synchronous movement or singing during worship. The similarity between personal and …
Vassilis Saroglou, The Psychology of Religion
The evolution of religious cognition
Several accounts of the evolution of religion distinguish two phases: an earlier shamanic stage and a later doctrinal stage. Similarly, several theories of human cognition distinguish two cognitive modes: a phylogenetically older system that is largely intuitive and a later, more distinctively human system that is more rational and articulate. This article suggests that cognition in the earlier stage in the evolution of religion is largely at the…
A space of transition and transaction
This rejoinder acknowledges the empirical gaps and theoretical/theological disharmony highlighted in the three selected commentaries on Place Spirituality (PS), but we defend our central argument about the developmental pathways of PS. First, we provide an overview of recent studies on PS, highlighting what has been done so far in the field. Second, we draw from the commentaries to advance the understanding of PS in relation to three world religi…
Theology and Psychology
Introduction
Place Attachment in the Bible
This paper examines the role of place attachment in religious life by analyzing various significant place events in the Bible, using analysis of biblical discourse. The paper looks at various biblical places, and explores the implications of approaching these sacred settings in terms of place attachment theory. In the Old Testament we focus on Mount Sinai, Canaan, and Jerusalem, and in the New Testament on Galilee, Jerusalem, and on view that Chr…
Religion” is complex and diverse
Religion is a multi-faceted phenomenon including cognition, behavior, experience and more. It is also very diverse; there are many different forms of religion, depending on evolutionary context, culture, personality and so on. In view of this it is misleading to make claims about anything as broad and general as “religion”, without specifying what kind of religion is under the spotlight. There is a danger of erroneous extrapolation from one speci…
Jan-Olav Henriksen and Karl Olav Sandnes, Jesus as Healer
Religion, Psychology of
Science and Religion
Coventry Cathedral
Coventry Cathedral in the 1960s developed a distinctive theology of society. There was not only a central focus on reconciliation but also a broader social theology that emphasized the theological interpretation of how God was at work in society as a whole. Coventry Cathedral made early contributions to a range of topics such as urban theology and ecological responsibility, and kept a close link between theological interpretation and practical mi…
Evolution, Religion, and Cognitive Science
1. Introduction: Pluralism and Complexity in the Evolutionary Cognitive Science of Religion 2. The Cognitive Science of Religion 3. Biologically Evolutionary Explanations of Religious Belief 4. The Evolution of Divine and Human Minds: Evolutionary Psychology, the Cognitive Study of Religion and Theism. 5. Extending Evolutionary Accounts of Religion beyond the Mind: Religions as Adaptive Systems 6. Skilful Engagement and the Effort after Value: An…
Cognitive processes in religious discernment
I welcome the core thrust of Nathaniel Barrett's paper and his approach to the religious perception of value in terms of Gibson's ecological, non-constructivist theory of perception; I agree with B
Attributions in a Spiritual Healing Context
Research on religious attributions has been limited by a preoccupation with disentangling 'religious' from 'naturalistic' attributions and a failure to capture the attributions that people make in response to meaningful events. Thirty years of research has shown that even under optimum conditions religious attributions are rare compared to naturalistic ones. This research draws on unique archival materials comprising letters written to the Panace…
The Oxford Handbook Of Natural Theology
Frequently misunderstood or polemicised, natural theology is an under-studied yet persistent and pervasive presence throughout the history of thought about ultimate reality - from the classical Greek theology of the philosophers to 21st century debates in science and religion.
Behavioural and Mental Health Research
Behavioural and Mental Health Research, 2nd Edition is a thoroughly revised, updated, and expanded version of the invaluable guide to research skills for psychologists, psychiatrists, nurses, social workers, and graduates training in those disciplines. It provides a series of practical guidelines for starting and carrying through any research project: from selecting the most appropriate approach, using computers, and analysing data to applying fo…
Doing Theology in Dialogue with Psychology
The dialogue between theology and psychology is part of the broader dialogue between theology and science, but more two-way. Theology operates with a broader conceptual framework, and points to approaches that psychology may neglect. One of the principal points of intersection between theology and psychology concerns human nature, though there is also a dialogue between theology and psychology about religion itself. Though the claims of the two d…
Colour naming of phobia-related words
A version of the Stroop test was developed which requires colour naming of spider words. Spider phobics were severely retarded on this task, but not on the conflicting colour-word Stroop or a Stroop with more general threat words. Desensitization of phobics significantly reduced interference on the Spider Stroop. A third experiment examined the retest properties of the Stroop and the value of equivalent forms. The explanation of the Spider Stroop…
The modification of abnormal beliefs
Psychological and Religious Perspectives on Emotion
This article is devoted to examining theoretical issues on the interface of the psychol- ogy of religion and the psychology of emotion, something which has recently been surprisingly neglected. The broad range of psychological components involved in emotion, and the importance of emotional processes in religion, make it a particularly relevant area of general psychology as far as religion is concerned. The first issue to be examined is the centra…
Strategies of clinical listening
Some of the problems that confront the clinician in seeking to comprehend patients' accounts of their problems are discussed. It must be anticipated that these will be systematically deficient, both because of limitations in patients' awareness and because of the effects of the communication situations. Several strategies of listening that are available: ( a ) attention to patients' exact language, ( b ) heuristic strategies, ( c ) selective tuni…
Habituation model of systematic desensitization
Coventry Cathedral
Coventry Cathedral in the 1960s developed a distinctive theology of society. There was not only a central focus on reconciliation but also a broader social theology that emphasized the theological interpretation of how God was at work in society as a whole. Coventry Cathedral made early contributions to a range of topics such as urban theology and ecological responsibility, and kept a close link between theological interpretation and practical mi…
Associations between phenomenal and objective aspects of concentration problems in depressed patients
The paper explores a distinction between different kinds of lapse of concentration in depressed patients. The strategy is to begin with the phenomenological distinction between the mind (a) 'wandering' on to something else or (b) going 'blank'. Blanking, but not mind-wandering, is associated with longer planning times on the 'Tower of London' task. In contrast, mind-wandering but not blanking, is associated with poor memory for prose, at least un…
Desensitization as an Habituation Phenomenon
Predictions about the effect of interstimulus intervals (ISIs) in desensitization were made from the habituation model and tested with a series of Ss, each serving as his own control. Strong items desensitized faster with long ISIs, though weak items were not affected. No effects on long-term response decrements were found. A second experiment examined an interpretation of the stimulus-length effect in desensitization in terms of an extension of …
The modification of abnormal beliefs
The structure of attitudes in psychiatric rehabilitation
There is some evidence of the predictive value of attitudes in psychiatric rehabilitation. It is suggested that the most satisfactory way of assessing relevant attitudes is through specially developed questionnaires. Data are presented about the correlational structure of such a questionnaire in both a preliminary and a revised form. It is concluded that separate scales can be constructed to measure dimensions apparently equivalent to the concept…
Habituation model of systematic desensitization
Clinical judgement and clinical training
The literature indicates that clinical judgement may sometimes be adversely affected by clinical training. It is suggested that this reflects qualitative changes in the modes of clinical listening, modes of inference, and relative weights given to stereotypic and individual information. A theoretical discussion of this issue focuses mainly on the hypothesis that training leads to relatively high‐risk strategies of judgement, and on the construct …
Strategies of clinical listening
Some of the problems that confront the clinician in seeking to comprehend patients' accounts of their problems are discussed. It must be anticipated that these will be systematically deficient, both because of limitations in patients' awareness and because of the effects of the communication situations. Several strategies of listening that are available: ( a ) attention to patients' exact language, ( b ) heuristic strategies, ( c ) selective tuni…
Relationships between spider constructs in phobics
An index of tight construing was derived from a Kelly grid in which the elements were spiders. This index, the coefficient of concordance, corresponds to the average correlation between constructs. Concordance was significantly higher in spider phobics than controls, in line with the hypothesis that emotional disorders are associated with higher correlations between symptom‐related constructs (i.e. ‘tight’ construing). Desensitization, though it …
Colour naming of phobia-related words
A version of the Stroop test was developed which requires colour naming of spider words. Spider phobics were severely retarded on this task, but not on the conflicting colour-word Stroop or a Stroop with more general threat words. Desensitization of phobics significantly reduced interference on the Spider Stroop. A third experiment examined the retest properties of the Stroop and the value of equivalent forms. The explanation of the Spider Stroop…
Associations between phenomenal and objective aspects of concentration problems in depressed patients
The paper explores a distinction between different kinds of lapse of concentration in depressed patients. The strategy is to begin with the phenomenological distinction between the mind (a) 'wandering' on to something else or (b) going 'blank'. Blanking, but not mind-wandering, is associated with longer planning times on the 'Tower of London' task. In contrast, mind-wandering but not blanking, is associated with poor memory for prose, at least un…
Aversion to personal body hair
A case is described of intense aversion to personal body hair on the chest, legs and arms. Exposure methods of behavioural treatment were used, combined with interpretative ones. Exposure was found to facilitate self‐exploration, which in turn led to the successful completion of exposure treatment. The circumstances under which exposure treatment can benefit from being combined with interpretative work are discussed
The Psychology of Religious Knowing
Expedition stress and personality change
There have been few attempts to investigate the widespread assumption that short‐term challenges can have beneficial effects on personality. An expedition to India organized by the British Schools Exploring Society provided such an opportunity. The Gordon Personal Profile Inventory showed that the expedition was associated with increased ascendancy, emotional stability, sociability and responsibility, and decreased cautiousness. Women tended to b…
Phobics show poor recall of anxiety words
An experiment was conducted on recall bias between words relating to stimulus and response aspects of spider phobia. In contrast to the experiment of Watts & Coyle (1992) mixed lists were used. Whereas Watts & Coyle had found no bias of phobics between stimulus and response words, the present experiment found that phobics were relatively impaired in the recall of words relating to the anxiety response, compared with words relating to the stimulus…
Emotion and Religion Revisited
O'Connor is critical of Watts' suggestion that emotion can serve as a model for religion. The proposal arises from recent developments in the psychology of emotion that emphasize that it is socially embedded and dependent on processes of interpretation. Similar points have been made about religion: Neither religion nor emotion are purely private matters. More generally, it is urged that there be stronger links between general psychology and the p…
Psychological and Religious Perspectives on Emotion
This article is devoted to examining theoretical issues on the interface of the psychol- ogy of religion and the psychology of emotion, something which has recently been surprisingly neglected. The broad range of psychological components involved in emotion, and the importance of emotional processes in religion, make it a particularly relevant area of general psychology as far as religion is concerned. The first issue to be examined is the centra…
Psychological research questions about yoga
There are two kinds of scientific questions about procedures such as yoga: ‘process' questions and ‘outcome’ questions. Research on the effectiveness of yoga indicates that it has a variety of beneficial effects, but there is more doubt about whether it has unique effects. A broad range of procedures which combine physical stillness with mental alertness seem to have comparable effects. More subtle questions arise concerning the ‘processes' by wh…
Psychology for Christian Ministry
"Psychology for Christian Ministry is a comprehensive and unique introduction to psychology as it is relevant to those training for and working in the clergy. Proceeding from the understanding that psychology is the discipline that illuminates those processes of personal change and growth central to religion, the volume ranges over many aspects of the subject, covering social, developmental, educational, occupational and counselling psychology, a…
Growing in the Image of God
Human spiritual qualities
Positive psychology is largely concerned with human qualities that have long been the subject of religious discussion and been encouraged through spiritual practices. We suggest that, rather than seeing positive psychology as replacing this earlier religious approach, it should be pursued in dialogue with it. We illustrate this with reference to work on forgiveness, gratitude, and hope in the Psychology and Religion Research Programme in the Univ…
Experiencing Liturgy
Attachment, Evolution and the Psychology of Religion
Lee Kirkpatrick's approach to the psychology of religion involves two main theoretical positions, attachment theory and evolutionary psychology. It is argued that the former is more fruitful than the latter because it stays closer to empirical data and suggests further hypotheses for investigation. An evolutionary approach to the psychology of religion suffers from the same problem as most evolutionary psychology of not being readily testable; al…
God, Humanity and the Cosmos - 3rd edition
This work is a fully updated new edition of this best-selling textbook in science and religion. This fully revised and updated edition of "God, Humanity and the Cosmos" includes new chapters by John Hedley Brooke, Paul D. Murray and David Wilkinson. In addition to a systematic exploration of contemporary perspectives in physics, evolutionary biology and psychology as they relate to theological descriptions of the universe, humanity and consciousn…
Doing Theology in Dialogue with Psychology
The dialogue between theology and psychology is part of the broader dialogue between theology and science, but more two-way. Theology operates with a broader conceptual framework, and points to approaches that psychology may neglect. One of the principal points of intersection between theology and psychology concerns human nature, though there is also a dialogue between theology and psychology about religion itself. Though the claims of the two d…
The Oxford Handbook Of Natural Theology
Frequently misunderstood or polemicised, natural theology is an under-studied yet persistent and pervasive presence throughout the history of thought about ultimate reality - from the classical Greek theology of the philosophers to 21st century debates in science and religion.
Behavioural and Mental Health Research
Behavioural and Mental Health Research, 2nd Edition is a thoroughly revised, updated, and expanded version of the invaluable guide to research skills for psychologists, psychiatrists, nurses, social workers, and graduates training in those disciplines. It provides a series of practical guidelines for starting and carrying through any research project: from selecting the most appropriate approach, using computers, and analysing data to applying fo…
Psychology (36 works) · Philosophy (27 works) · Epistemology (20 works) · Social Psychology (20 works) · Sociology (18 works) · Religion, Spirituality, and Psychology (15 works) · Cognitive psychology (12 works) · Theology (12 works) · Computer Science (11 works) · Cognition (9 works)