Year: 2010
Type: article
Abstract: Individuals are sometimes visited by intrusive thoughts of committing aggressive or violent acts.These thoughts of aggression are easy for some people to ignore, whereas other people find such thoughts highly distressing.In the current study it was predicted an unwanted thought of aggression can discredit a valued view of self as kind or moral.Alternatively, an unwanted thought of aggression could confirm a fear that one is dangerous or violent.These threats to identity increase distress in response to intrusive thoughts (e.g.Rowa & Purdon, 2003;Ferrier & Brewin, 2005).Returning to the main hypothesis, intrusive thoughts should be particularly distressing to individuals who have strong religious beliefs and / or engage in frequent religious activity for two reasons.First, it was proposed that the more frequently a person engages in religious activities and the stronger her religious beliefs, the more likely she will be to think about her thoughts in unhelpful ways.Second, it was predicted that as an individual's religious behavior / belief increases, so too will the threat to identity that occurs in response to having an intrusion with aggressive content.
Author: Eric D. Rose
Institution: Case Western Reserve University
Language: English
Subfield: Health
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W2416244699