Religion

Can religion promote human flourishing? Existing research says yes. However, this work has largely been done within ‘WEIRD’ and Christian contexts. Might the reasons why or the answer be different elsewhere? Here, we outline how religion can contribute to flourishing among individuals and cultures using a cross-cultural approach. In five sections, we cover how religion and culture shape meaning in life, character/virtue, positive emotion, social relationships, and physical/mental health. We emphasize how little these relationships have been studied around the world and why the relationship between religion and flourishing, especially, would be aided by a cross-cultural look. We close with future directions in the study of religion and flourishing, with special attention to how and why this relationship may vary across cultural and religious groups.

Wordle is a daily, online brainteaser. The widespread popularity of the game in the early months of 2022 has also led to widespread cheating. Here, we use data from Google Trends and Twitter to explore correlates of cheating on Wordle. We find that cheating behavior is negatively related to religiosity and cultural tightness. Although this is a benign example of cheating behavior, we discuss how popular trends can be used as case studies of group-level behavior.

Being that food is integral to our survival, it follows that religion would play a role in what and how we eat, in the same way it guides our social relationships, our dress, our routines, and our worldviews. Indeed, food is a critical component of religion—as well as a reflection of the other components that make religion unique: beliefs, values, practices, and community. This fact is what necessitates greater attention towards food as a lens for understanding psychological phenomenon both within the psychology of religion and the social scientific community at large. Utilizing existing theories from the psychology of religion and cultures, as well as illustrative examples from anthropological accounts, this book describes how food plays a role in religious life as a driver of beliefs, values, practices, and community.

Book coming 2026 with Cambridge University Press.