govern point

This self control study is getting some play. Self control is very important for success in life, and new research carried out by Michael McCullough at the Miami University showed that religious people have a higher level of self control that people who are not religious.

Thus, religious people may be better at pursuing and achieving long-term goals that are important to them.

To arrive at his controversial conclusion, McCullough evaluated eight decades of research that was conducted in diverse samples of people from around the world. He found persuasive evidence from a variety of domains – including neuroscience, economics, psychology and sociology – that religious beliefs and religious behaviors are capable of encouraging people to stay “in check” and to more effectively regulate their emotions & behaviors, so that they can pursue goals.

“The importance of self-control and self-regulation for understanding human behavior are well known to social scientists, but the possibility that the links of religiosity to self-control might explain the links of religiosity to health and behavior has not received much explicit attention,” said McCullough. “We hope our paper will correct this oversight in the scientific literature.”

McCullough drew some most interesting conclusions:

• prayer & meditation, along with other rituals, affect the parts of the human brain that are most important for self-regulation & self-control.
• When people strive for something “sacred,” they prioritize pursuing those goals, and therefore, are probably more effective at achieving the goals.
• Religious lifestyles may contribute to self-control by providing people with clear standards for behavior, by causing people to regulate their own behavior more closely.

“By thinking of religion as a social force that provides people with resources for controlling their impulses [including the impulse for self-preservation, in the case of suicide bombers] in the service of higher goals, religion can motivate people to do just about anything,” he concluded.

Other articles:

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• Religion Makes People Helpful And Generous — Under Certain Conditions
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• How To Trick People Into Doing The Right Thing

A recent study indicates a relationship between religious beliefs and one’s level of self control.  Here is an excerpt:

University of Miami professor of Psychology Michael McCullough and his team evaluated eight decades worth of research on religion that had been conducted in diverse samples of people from around the world.

What they found in the end was “persuasive evidence” from a variety of domains within the social sciences – including neuroscience, economics, psychology, and sociology – that religious beliefs and religious behaviors are capable of encouraging people to exercise self-control and to more effectively regulate their emotions and behaviors so that they can pursue valued goals.

“Religious lifestyles may contribute to self-control by providing people with clear standards for their behavior, by causing people to monitor their own behavior more closely, and by giving people the sense that God is watching their behavior,” states one conclusion of the study, which will be published in the January 2009 issue of Psychological Bulletin.

So let me understand this – there appears to be a relationship between how one behaves and what system of morales they might follow which are religious.  Hmmm, novel concept.

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