Quantitative Research in Psychology of Religion in Brazil

Abstract

Although in Brazil Psychology of Religion historically has a tradition in qualitative research, in recent years it has been possible to observe a significant growth of quantitative publications. Thus, this paper aims to present an analysis of quantitative studies in Psychology of Religion in Brazil, published in Portuguese. For this, we surveyed indexed studies in the CAPES Bank of Theses and Dissertations (Coordination of Higher Education Personnel Training) and ScieLO Journal Portal (Scientific Electronic Library Online), using several search terms such as “psychology and religion”, “psychology and quantitative research”, “religion and validation”, “religion and scale”, “religiosity and scale”, “spirituality and scale”, “spiritual/religious well-being scale”, “spiritual/religious coping scale”, “psychiatry and religion”, “psychiatry and quantitative research”, “psychology and validation” and “psychiatry and validation”. We selected 70 studies for analysis. The results show that studies on “Psychology and religion” come from different areas of knowledge, raising the question of the specificity of “Psychology of Religion”. The quantitative research indicates a trend of growth, especially in the use of scales. Studies indicate the need for further reflection on the role of religiosity and spirituality on health, on meaning construction and meaning in life processes, on feelings of spiritual well-being and promotion of mental health. Considering that these issues have been addressed from diverse fields, in order to strengthen Psychology of Religions a field of knowledge, we suggested the conduction of studies of qualitative and quantitative nature in the theoretical and empirical perspective of this discipline itself.