J 1751-9004 2010 00339 X

Social and Personality Psychology Compass 5/3 (2011): 137–152, 10.1111/j.1751-9004.2010.00339.
Integrating the Study of Culture and Religion: Toward a

Psychology of Worldview
Kathryn A. Johnson, Eric D. Hill and Adam B. Cohen*
Department of Psychology, Arizona State University
Abstract
We propose a psychology of worldview as an integrative framework for the study of culture and
religion. We propose six aspects of worldview, each influenced by national and religious cultures:
ontology (existential beliefs), epistemology (what can be known and how one should reason),
semiotics (language and symbols used to describe the world), axiology (proximate goals, values,
and morals), teleology (ultimate goals and the afterlife consequences of action), and praxeology
(proscriptions and prescriptions for behavior). More attention to worldview can help remedy a
lack of attention to: (i) the mutual influences of these different kinds of cultures (including
national and religious), (ii) trans-national religious groups, (iii) non-religious belief systems, and
(iv) the psychological predictors of cultural conflict. Worldviews can predict both individual and
group behaviors and, further, afford a more nuanced understanding of cultural and religious
processes as well as providing a platform for interdisciplinary dialogue.
Integrating the Study of Culture and Religion: Toward a Psychology of

Worldview
Culture, broadly defined, refers to a shared system of knowledge, language, social
norms, values, and behaviors. From this perspective, both national groups and
religions can be considered forms of cultures (Cohen, 2009). However, psychologists
have typically focused on national cultures, leaving religions as under-explored cultures
in psychology. Moreover, researchers rarely examine how national and religious
cultures mutually influence or transform one another. One explanation for this dearth
in the literature is that researchers have not found an integrative framework
with which to discuss the interaction of national and religious beliefs, values, and tra-
ditions.
In this article, we argue that a focus on worldview could provide just such a frame-
work. Because both national and religious cultures espouse particular worldviews, we
argue that an integrative psychology of worldview would advance the study of both religion
and national culture, in addition to highlighting the interaction of religious and cultural
influences at both the individual and group level. In this article, we first discuss the inter-
sections of religion and culture, and the need for an integrative framework. We next dis-
cuss the history of the construct of worldview, propose six components of worldviews,
and discuss how each of these components may be represented at both the individual and
group levels. Finally, because cultural worldviews are associated with language, ecologies,
and ideologies, we conclude that an integrative psychology of worldview affords a more
nuanced understanding of cultural processes, in general, and provides a common ground
for future interdisciplinary dialogues.
ª 2011 The Authors

Social and Personality Psychology Compass ª 2011 Blackwell Publishing Ltd
138 Psychology of Worldview
Worldview, Culture, and Religion

What, exactly, do we mean by worldview? Sometimes referred to in anthropology as
‘ordered universes’ (Klass, 1995), worldviews are the socially constructed realities which
humans use to frame perception and experience (Redfield, 1952). A worldview involves
how an individual knows and thinks about what is in the world, and worldviews influ-
ence how he or she relates to the persons and things in the environment. Humans have
shared, fundamental goals such as negotiating the environment (e.g., Bruner, Goodnow,
& Austin, 2005 ⁄ 1956), communicating, forming coalitions (e.g., Baumeister & Leary,
1995), surviving, reproducing, and caring for offspring (Kenrick, Griskevicius, Neuberg,
& Schaller, 2010). There are particular ways of thinking about accomplishing these basic
goals and every individual develops both an individual and a shared view of what is, what
is important, and what ought to be.
Worldviews share some conceptual overlap with cultures. Culture can be conceptu-
alized as ‘‘a socially transmitted or socially constructed constellation consisting of such
things as practices, competencies, ideas, schemas, symbols, values, norms, institutions,
goals, constitutive rules, artifacts, and modifications of the physical environment’’
(Fiske, Kitayama, Markus, & Nisbett, 2002, p. 85). Like worldviews, cultures provide
the cognitive schemas necessary to make sense of the world. Unlike worldviews,
however, which may refer to either an individual’s or a group’s perceptual framework,
cultures consist entirely of shared views of the world. There are no individual
cultures. Further, although worldviews are constructed within an individual’s physi-
cal and social environment, worldviews (unlike culture) refer only to the psychologi-
cal, cognitive, and affective determinants of behavior and not the artifacts,
technologies, or institutions that may be included when discussing culture (Chiu &
Hong, 2006).
Like ethnic or national cultures, religions encompass a set of beliefs, practices, values,
moral codes, symbols, and artifacts (Cohen, 2009). Indeed, anthropologist Geertz (1973)
considered religion to be a cultural system in his classic work, The Interpretation of Cul-
tures. Importantly, however, religious cultures (and religious individual and cultural
worldviews) are unique in that religious cultural constituents endorse metaphysical
claims such as the existence of immaterial or supernatural agents (Ysseldyk, Matheson,
& Anisman, 2010). These beliefs about deities, ancestral spirits, demons, etc. initiate a
cascade of thoughts and feelings regarding causality, ultimate concerns, values, injunctive
norms, authority structures, reproductive strategies, etc. (e.g., Atran & Norenzayan,
2004; Paloutzian & Park, 2005; Sosis, 2006). Furthermore, religious beliefs are not nec-
essarily shared beliefs and, instead, may reflect an individual’s idiosyncratic or syncretic
interpretation of broader religious traditions (Bellah, Madsen, Sullivan, Swidler, &
Tipton, 1985).
Despite the significant overlap in thinking about national and religious cultures,
when investigating either the psychology of culture or the psychology of religion,
researchers often neglect: (i) the bi-directional influence of national and religious
cultures; (ii) the study of religious groups as trans-national cultures; (iii) the influence
of philosophical (e.g., Daoism), quasi-religious (e.g., indigenous), or secularist beliefs
and attitudes on cultural models; and (iv) competing worldviews as psychological
predictors of cultural conflict. In this paper, we argue that a greater emphasis on
individual and group worldviews, both within and between national and religious
cultures, will yield a more nuanced understanding of cultural processes, including
national and religious cultures.
ª 2011 The Authors Social and Personality Psychology Compass 5/3 (2011): 137–152, 10.1111/j.1751-9004.2010.00339.x
Psychology of Worldview 139
Bi-directionality of religious and national culture

Religions are inextricably linked with the broader cultural contexts in which they are
located (e.g., Neusner, 2010; Saroglou & Cohen, forthcoming; Smart, 2003). Histori-
cally, there have been many demonstrations of the transformative impact of cultural
groups on religious beliefs and practices, as well as the reshaping of shared metaphysical
beliefs, language, values, and customs. For example, the practice of Christianity in colo-
nial regions is in some ways quite different from the traditions of the European colo-
nizers, as Catholicism in the New World was often adapted to the worldviews of
indigenous peoples. In Mexico, for instance, traditional narratives (e.g., the Virgin
Mary) have been blended with Aztec symbols (e.g., the sun and the crescent moon)
(Beatty, 2006; Gruzinski, 2001; Lafaye, 1976). In these historical cases, collective-level
worldviews have been blended to create a new perceptual framework for the group.
Inglehart and Baker (2000) found that economic prosperity in over 60 countries often
predicted a shift from religious to secular values, or from values emphasizing survival to
‘post-materialist’ values emphasizing self-expression, including values such as tolerance,
subjective well-being, and concern for the quality of life. Conversely, periods of eco-
nomic downturn and political turmoil have resulted in increased membership in
authoritarian churches in the US (McCann, 1999; Sales, 1972). However, these syn-
chronous shifts in religion and national culture, and the processes by which they occur,
are under-explored. Thinking about them in terms of shifting worldviews could pro-
vide a platform for much-needed research.
On the other hand, religious and national cultures are not always synchronous, and
the competing worldviews of individuals within national cultures may also interact to
produce religious or national sub-cultures, and even conflict, within the larger national
culture. Most are aware of the divide between the worldviews of conservatives and
liberals within US culture, for example (Hunter, 1991). Yet Cohen et al. (2009)
found that, even within these groups, religiousness was positively associated with con-
servative politics for Whites and Asians but not for Blacks and Latinos. This informa-
tive interaction, which may have been ignored in an investigation of only ethnic
culture or only religious culture, provides a more textured understanding of political
beliefs.
Although most psychologists recognize these bi-directional influences of religion and
culture, in research practice, investigators typically focus on national cultures. Indeed, the
studies described above suggest that the cultural differences we sometimes attribute to
national cultures may actually be driven by the shared worldviews – perceptions and
social norms – of religious groups within that culture. We might speculate that world-
view is more important than cultural affiliation in determining key psychological pro-
cesses. For example, people’s worldviews (including their views of the malleability of
traits) could determine their attributions more so than their cultural affiliations (Dweck,
Chiu, & Hong, 1995).
Partly due to the focus on national culture, there is also a paucity in the literature
regarding the psychological process of acculturation as it relates to religious and national cul-
tures. One possible reason for this neglect is that researchers have not found an integrated
framework with which to discuss possible interactions of national and religious cultural
traditions. We propose that reframing the interactions between national and religious
cultures as transactions of different worldviews would yield a more nuanced understand-
ing of the processes of cultural change.
Religions as trans-national cultures

Many of the world’s ‘great’ religions (e.g., Christianity, Judaism, Islam, or Buddhism)
have evolved since their beginnings and become trans-national, global, religious commu-
nities with worldviews that emphasize the importance of transcending national boundaries
and, instead, pursuing common religious goals. People who speak different languages,
separated in time and space, may still share a particular set of beliefs, practices, or mean-
ingful narratives (i.e., scriptures and songs) that are unfamiliar to, or unaccepted by, their
national cultural peers (Cohen, 2009). Viewing culture through the lens of worldview
would highlight the need to better understand Christian, Jewish, Islamic, or Buddhist,
rather than Western, Middle Eastern, or Eastern cultures, for instance. These trans-
national religious cultures and their associated worldviews become particularly salient in
understanding the psychology of cultural conflict as discussed below.
Non-religious worldviews
Just as religious cultures are often neglected in cultural psychology, non-theistic and idio-
syncratic worldviews do not receive the attention they deserve in the psychology of reli-
gion. Although not everyone has a ‘religion’, every individual (e.g., a humanist, a
secularist, etc.) has some particular, systematic understanding of what is, what can be
known, what is valued, what ought to be ultimate goals, and how to act. We contend
that the term worldview precisely captures the notion that all humans think about them-
selves and their relation to others and try to make sense of the world. Indeed, the many
intersecting beliefs, values, and practices that we have briefly mentioned above converge
in the construction of an individual’s worldview.
Cultures are not always religious, and religion is not always a culture or a shared
system of beliefs. There is also an important individual dimension to religion that
James (1902 ⁄ 2002) defined as ‘‘… the feelings, acts, and experiences of individual[s] in
their solitude, so far as they apprehend themselves to stand in relation to whatever
they may consider the divine’’ (p. 36). Belief systems can be idiosyncratic (Bellah
et al., 1985) and, we propose, these also are more accurately understood as individual
religious worldviews. For example, Christianity in the US has developed into a mar-
ketplace of ideas over the past century, with many different denominations and sects
springing up (Roof, 1993), and at least 22% of non-demoninational Christians report-
ing belief in astrology or reincarnation – beliefs that some may hold are contrary to
Biblical teachings (Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life, 2009). Researchers ought
to be keenly aware that while there are certainly universal cognitive processes as well
as clearly defined religious belief systems, there are also important secularist, philosophi-
cal, or idiosyncratic religious worldviews present in the populations that social and per-
sonality psychologists routinely sample from. A better understanding of these divergent
worldviews and their influence on psychological processes seems crucial when research-
ing how people think, feel, and behave. In fact, transitioning from collective-level
worldviews to those at the individual level will involve examining how a multitude of
collective-level worldviews interact at the cultural level, and within the individual,
affecting social cognition and behavior.
Cultures in conflict
Perhaps the most societally important benefit of taking the worldview perspective relates
to the study of cultural conflict – an area that has been vastly under-explored in
psychology (Eidelson & Eidelson, 2003). There has been insufficient integrative theory to
fully understand the psychological processes which give rise to new, competing ideologies
and which precede social change and conflict. The social consequences of idiosyncratic
religious beliefs (e.g., religious extremists), secular versus religious cultural influences
within a nation, or conflicts between religious groups all demand a serious consideration
of how competing worldviews are constructed and negotiated. In certain circumstances,
two collective worldviews may merge within a single individual, and then another indi-
vidual, and then another, until a new shared worldview is born. This synthesis may be
seen in the process by which individuals acculturate and eventually give rise to a new
culture, a new worldview. In some cases the clash of worldviews may lead to peaceful
synthesis, while in others – to conflict. Examining these clashes from a worldview per-
spective, may provide new insights useful in resolving religious and national conflicts both
between and within cultural groups.
Although religious, quasi-religious, secularist, and national cultures all have much to
say about emotional regulation, aggression, self-construal, attributions, sexual behaviors,
decision-making, and a host of other psychological processes, it is rare for researchers to
report the predominant religious characteristics of research participants – much less inves-
tigate the influence of individual or group worldviews. We contend that a systematic
program of research regarding the effects of disparate worldviews on human thoughts,
feelings, and behaviors would illuminate the process of acculturation, draw attention to
important trans-national religious cultures, begin to account for non-religious belief
systems in the psychology of religion, and provide new insights regarding cultural
conflict.
Worldview: an integrative framework

We contend that understanding the interactions between religion and national cultures as
transactions of different worldviews can provide an integrative theoretical framework that
has been alluded to, and yet under-emphasized, in the literature. Certainly, we are nei-
ther the first nor the sole advocates of using the construct worldview to understand reli-
gious and national cultural beliefs and practices. A search of the database PsycInfo
revealed that worldview is commonly referred to, with 4,659 publications and 470 titles
that include the term ‘world view’ or ‘worldview’. Psychiatrist ⁄ philosopher, Karl Jaspers,
first recommended the psychology of worldview in the early 20th century as a theoretical
framework for understanding lifespan development and the relationship of the self as
subject with objects (see Webb, 2009). Koltko-Rivera (2004) discussed the concept
extensively, and we seek here to build on these advances.
Snibbe and Markus (2005) have referred to the process of worldview formation in
referring to ‘cultural models’ as
sets of assumptions that are widely (though not universally) shared by a group of people, exist-
ing both in individual minds and in public artifacts, institutions, and practices. At the individual
level, these cultural models provide implicit blueprints of how to think, feel, and act. When
people act according to these blueprints, they reproduce the public models, thereby perpetuat-
ing the cultural context from which both were derived (p. 704).
Similarly, the idea that cognitive styles correspond to variable religious, cultural, or philo-
sophical ‘points of view’ has also been elaborated by Richard Nisbett and his colleagues
(Nisbett, 2003; Nisbett & Masuda, 2007). Causal attribution and ⁄ or cognitive styles are
grounded in different philosophical views of the world (Choi, Nisbett, & Norenzayan,
1999; Nisbett, Choi, Peng, & Norenzayan, 2001). Although these theorists do not neces-
sarily frame their arguments in terms of worldview, their claims fall within the worldview
paradigm.
Worldviews matter. Doug Medin, Scott Atran, and their colleagues have documented
important behavioral differences between American Indians and Euro-Americans attribut-
able to their divergent worldviews or, as the authors say, ‘cultural mind’ (Atran, Medin,
& Ross, 2005; Bang, Medin, & Atran, 2007; Medin & Atran, 2004). The notion of
worldview has also been of central importance for terror management theorists, who have
shown that death anxiety is alleviated by worldview defense (e.g., Pyszczynski, Green-
berg, & Solomon, 1997).
Despite the frequent use of the term in the literature, and despite the usefulness of the
construct worldview in theorizing about the interaction of national culture, individual
religiosity, and religious culture, the theoretical discussion of the psychology of world-
view has been both limited and disjointed (for a review see Koltko-Rivera, 2004). In the
next section, we provide a brief history of the construct, suggest six components of
worldview, and discuss how worldviews are represented and how they can be informative
at both the individual and collective level. We also provide a concrete example of how
the various components of an individual worldview may affect social cognition and
behaviors.
The Psychology of Worldview

The term worldview is derived from the German weltanschauung which means ‘a view of
the world’. Immanuel Kant may have been the first to use the term in a scholarly con-
text, The Critique of Judgment (1790 ⁄ 1987; Naugle, 2002). The utility of worldview in
comprehending culture was later recognized by anthropologist Redfield (1952) who
sought to describe how indigenous people understood the nature of the universe and
humanity’s relation to it. Redfield distinguished culture from worldview in the sense that
the individual, or self, was the axis of worldview. The term became especially useful in
post-modern times as it reinforced the notion that indigenous people did not lack a
coherent belief system, they simply had unique worldviews.
In line with anthropologists and philosophers, Smart (2000) promoted the use of the
term in religious studies, using worldview to describe diverse religious groups and arguing
that religions, both large and small, were whole systems of thought. Smart recognized
that not all ideological systems were religions; yet even the non-religious (e.g., Daoists,
Buddhists, or Marxists) have a worldview, whether that is materialism or some other phi-
losophy.
The notion of worldview was also central in the Sapir-Whorfian (Carroll, 1956)
hypothesis that language determines a person’s categories, temporal and geographic orien-
tation, sense of kinship, and other interpreted aspects of one’s social and environmental
interactions. In other words, an individual’s perceptions and experiences are all filtered
through a socially constructed view of reality that is, in turn, defined by our descriptions
of the world.
Because the concept of worldview has penetrated so many disciplines, greater reli-
ance on worldview in psychology could have the two-pronged benefit of encouraging
greater multidisciplinarity (needed in the study of culture in psychology; Cohen, 2010),
as well as facilitating building on the insights these other, related disciplines have
generated.
Six components of worldview

While everyone generally agrees that worldviews are ways of thinking about and inter-
preting the world, cultural anthropologists, philosophers, psychologists, and religious stud-
ies scholars have all suggested a variety of components or combinations of components
that constitute a worldview (e.g., Carroll, 2010; Koltko-Rivera, 2004; Naugle, 2002;
Redfield, 1952; Sire, 2004; Vidal, forthcoming). Cognitive anthropologists first suggested
that worldviews consisted of (i) categories of the things in the world as (ii) constructed
by language, orientations in (iii) time and (iv) space, (v) causality, and the (vi) relation of
self to the world (Kearney, 1975).
Psychologist Koltko-Rivera (2004), has more recently argued that worldviews comprise
a set of beliefs about reality: (i) what is and (ii) what can be know (existential beliefs);
(iii) what is good (evaluative beliefs); and (iv) what ought to be done towards attaining
proximate goals, and (v) ultimate goals (prescriptive and proscriptive beliefs). Conceptual-
izing worldview as a multi-dimensional construct, he groups previous psychological stud-
ies into 42 dimensions which further fall into what Koltko-Rivera deems to be seven
topical groups (human nature, will, cognition, behavior, interpersonal relations, truth, and
world and life). In sum, these 42 dimensions address existential, evaluative, prescriptive
and proscriptive beliefs about reality.
Because we believe a psychology of worldview can provide a common platform for
interdisciplinary dialogues on cultural processes, we have re-positioned Koltko-Rivera’s
groups to align with the worldview components often identified by anthropologists and
as elaborated by philosopher Vidal (forthcoming) as shown in Table 1. Unlike Vidal, we
have combined cosmology (beliefs about origins) with ontology (beliefs about what
exists). Further, in view of the importance of language and symbols in culture, we have
added semiotics to Vidal’s list of worldview components. Thus, we put forth a set of six
Table 1. Proposed components of worldview and their relation to Fiske et al.’s (2002) definition of
culture and Koltko-Rivera’s (2004) topical groups
Worldview
component Description Fiske, et al. Koltko-Rivera
Ontology Beliefs about who or what is in the world; Ideas World and life
here we include other branches of
metaphysics: theology, cosmology (origins),
and the nature of the self
Epistemology What can be known and how one should Competencies Truth; cognition
reason
Semiotics Symbols, gestures, and language used to Symbols Orientation behaviors
conceptualize and describe the world; time,
space, and meaning
Axiology Proximate goals, values, and ethics; includes Values Moral behaviors;
beliefs about human action; good and evil; human nature
beliefs about change
Teleology Ultimate goals, beliefs about the afterlife, Goals Will
and consequences of action; predicated on
beliefs about origins (cosmology)
Praxeology Social norms and sanctions in a community, Rules, practices, Interpersonal
informed by the foregoing beliefs, values, and norms
and ultimate goals
components as characteristic of worldviews: ontology (here we include other branches of

metaphysics including cosmology, theology, and philosophical anthropology), epistemol-
ogy, semiotics, axiology, teleology, and praxeology. Although Fiske et al.’s (2002) defini-
tion of culture was not intended to be an all-inclusive list of cultural characteristics, we
believe the psychological aspects of culture identified by these psychologists also corre-
spond to the proposed components of worldview listed here.
Like culture and religion, the components of a worldview are co-constructed in partic-
ular ways for each individual through interactions with other humans, early caregivers,
social institutions (e.g., school), and the environment (e.g., Berger, 1967; Koltko-Rivera,
2004; Neisser, 1993). So, people may derive ideas about how to reason, for example, in a
scientific culture (e.g., empirical studies provide accurate information), in an indigenous
culture (e.g., the movement of the wind may signify a personal warning), or a church
group (e.g., scriptural texts are revealed truth). In turn, individuals tend to interact with
those who have similar worldviews, eventually creating communities and cultural models
that influence other individuals in a bi-directional process so that a worldview is repre-
sented both individually and in groups. In this section we provide concrete examples and
empirical studies illustrating how components of one’s worldview may influence the
thoughts, feelings, and behaviors of individuals.
Ontology
As anthropologist Redfield (1952) noted, the self is the center, or axis, of one’s
worldview. However, the next basic concern of all humans is to know who or what
else is in the world. Who must be respected? Who or what is to be approached or
avoided? Consequently, notions of personhood and the status of both humans and
non-human agents are central to the construction of worldviews. As a fundamental
human concern, there has been an increasing interest in dehumanization and its con-
ceptual bookend, anthropomorphism (Boyer, 2001; Epley, Waytz, & Cacioppo, 2007;
Haslam, Kashima, Loughnan, Shi, & Suitner, 2008; Kwan & Fiske, 2008). For exam-
ple, psychologists and anthropologists have investigated differences in the ways human-
ness and personhood are construed across diverse cultural and religious groups (e.g.,
Bird-David, 1999; Boyer, 2001; Hallowell, 1960 ⁄ 1975; Haslam et al., 2008; Ingold,
2000; Shweder & Bourne, 1984). According to the Native American Ojibwa, even
rocks speak, and can be persons. In Nepal, airline officials with technical difficulties
sacrifice goats to appease the gods. Scientists at M.I.T. are perfecting the personality
of Mertz, the sociable robot.
Thus, personhood may be more accurately cast in terms of behavioral outcomes, such
that ‘persons’ may be thought of as any entity capable of, or entitled to, social interaction
or moral reciprocity with considerable variability depending on an individual’s worldview
(Johnson, Berlin, Neel, & Cohen, forthcoming). These lay theories of personhood have
important implications for social attitudes and behaviors regarding issues such as animal
welfare (Cavalieri & Singer, 1993; DeLeeuw, Galen, Aebersold, & Stanton, 2007),
human-technology interactions (Roese & Amir, 2009), or abortion (Harris, 1999).
Language (i.e., semiotics) and epistemology

The acquisition of basic biological concepts such as ‘living thing’, ‘animal’, or ‘plant’ is
partly shaped by the way these concepts are named in the first place (e.g., Anggoro,
Waxman, & Medin, 2008; Carroll, 1956). In English, for example, ‘living thing’ often
calls to mind images of moving creatures – humans and animals – but not necessarily
plants. Indonesian-speaking children, however, describe the world in a slightly different
way and are more likely to identify both plants and animals as entities that are ‘alive’.
Moreover, the attribute ‘alive’ may be extended to rocks or water for some American
Indians (Ross, Medin, Coley, & Atran, 2003).
Even when speaking the same language, of course, different national cultural and reli-
gious groups may have additional vocabularies (e.g., pluralistic ignorance, reactance, or
authoritarianism in social psychology) or terms that are known to others but differ in
their meaningfulness or frequency of use (e.g., regression or covariation in statistics). In
this way, language and specialty words continually reinforce what is important to an indi-
vidual when thinking about the world.
Following Whorf (Carroll, 1956), Lakoff and Johnson (1980) have argued that our
entire conceptual structure, our beliefs about what is real, about objects, and how things
are related are all, to some extent, socially constructed and supported by the images (or
metaphors) we paint with words. The language, words, and metaphors people use give
rise to more complex belief systems concerning what people believe is rational objective
truth (e.g., scientific worldview) as opposed to intuitive subjective feelings about a topic
(e.g., religious worldview). ‘‘We have argued that truth is always relative to a conceptual
system’’ (p. 185). In other words, both a religious view of the universe as the habitat of
spirits, and a secularist view of an entirely material universe, are socially-constructed,
learned worldviews grounded in the linguistic nuances of the individual.
Moral concerns – axiology

Differences in the domain of moral judgment also reflect variation in individual world-
views. Jonathan Haidt, for example, has conducted extensive research on religio-cultural
differences in moral psychology (e.g., Haidt, 2007; Haidt & Graham, 2007; Haidt &
Joseph, 2004). Haidt and his colleagues have found that moral values serve a social func-
tion and that liberals place much less value on ingroup loyalty, purity, or respect for
authority relative to conservatives, whereas liberals place relatively more value on fairness,
and harm and care rules.
As another example of religio-cultural or worldview differences in moral reasoning,
Christian doctrine considers mere thoughts about immoral actions to be as morally rele-
vant as the actions themselves – reflecting Jesus’ pronouncements such as ‘‘whosoever
looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his
heart’’ (Matthew 5:28). In Judaism, however, thinking about an immoral action does not
have the moral status of the action. For Jews, thinking about having an affair is much less
morally important than it is for Protestants (Cohen & Rozin, 2001). Similarly, at the
trans-national level, some Muslims may be likely to endorse Sharia law over and above
personal thoughts or conflicting national legal codes.
Importantly, human values, ethics, and moral reasoning are also often undergirded by
individual beliefs about human nature, good and evil, and the static versus dynamic
nature of the universe. For example, based on extensive research, Dweck et al. (1995)
have theorized that people hold implicit beliefs about whether personal attributes (e.g.,
intelligence or moral character) are fixed or malleable. These competing views of human
nature lead people to understand actions as attributable to either broad traits or more spe-
cific situational mediators. Thus, the two frameworks elicit different responses to events
and human actions, such as helplessness versus mastery-oriented responses or the tendency
to punish versus rehabilitate offenders.
Praxeology and teleology

Finally, the intensive focus on geographic, national, or ethnic variation in cultural psy-
chology has had certain drawbacks that are clarified by thinking of culture models and
social practices as a component of shared worldviews. One such clarification relates to the
distinction made between individualism and collectivism (I ⁄ C). Variables associated with
I ⁄ C are most likely both national cultural and religious. American individualism, for
example, has certainly been shaped by the political philosophies of the founding fathers
and on values such as individual rights and freedom (Kitayama, Conway, Pietromonaco,
Park, & Plaut, 2010; Oyserman, Coon, & Kemmelmeier, 2002). Yet, the Protestant belief
in personal salvation and the emphasis on individual character development were no
doubt just as informative of individualistic thinking (Cohen, Hall, Koenig, & Meador,
2005; Cohen & Hill, 2007; Williams, 2002).
Additionally, collectivistic cultures value social connections, and the social norms in
many such cultures are also highly integrated with religious beliefs. As in the case of Juda-
ism, for example, people’s religious and spiritual behavior may be tightly regulated through
religious rituals and traditions (e.g., Cohen & Hill, 2007; Cohen et al., 2005; Gilman,
1990) and by the view that one’s self, deceased ancestors, and future offspring are all joined
together in an enduring, ageless community of past, present, and future members (e.g.,
Seltzer, 1980). We contend that individualism and collectivism are better understood as
worldviews shaped by the interaction of religious and national cultural values.
Worldviews at the individual and group level

We have given the few examples in the previous section to illustrate the fact that the
worldview concept is quite versatile and each of the components of worldview is inter-
esting in its own right. Further, we believe each of these components converge to shape
an individual’s worldview – a view that is typically then shared with others. However,
individuals within a religious or national culture often differ from the group on numerous
measures (e.g., Na et al., 2010). In this sense, the worldview framework becomes espe-
cially useful in that it allows for a more textured understanding of a particular individual
or smaller group of individuals through careful examination of the components of their
individual and collective worldviews, including their (i) ontology, (ii) epistemology, (iii)
semiotics, (iv) axiology, (v) teleology, and (vi) praxeology.
As one example, with regard to the specified components of worldview and how they
interact, we consider conservative Christians at the group level. It is important to note
that the purpose of the following example is not to reify existing stereotypes, but to illus-
trate the usefulness of the worldview concept as a basis for understanding some of a myr-
iad of religious, environmental, and other cultural influences on individuals as they exist
within groups (e.g., Adams & Markus, 2004). First, orthodox, conservative Christians
share a belief in ‘‘the trinitarian God whose essential character establishes the moral order
of the universe’’ (Naugle, 2002, p. 260). Second, as a group, they believe that absolute
truth comes through revelation from and faith in the Bible (Hood, Hill, & Williamson,
2005). Conservative Christians may share a similar language with non-Christians; yet Bib-
lical terms such as righteousness, sin, or sanctification may further shape their perceptions
of the world in ways unfamiliar to or rejected by secularists. As Meigs (1995) noted in
her research on ritual language, ‘‘the conservative Christian experience of quotation is
one of feeling one’s own words and self replaced by Jesus’’ (p. 100). The conservative
Christian worldview also has its own set of values and moral obligations, including
potentially heightened responsibilities to one’s family and honoring God’s moral law
(Naugle, 2002). Moreover, conservative Christians share similar beliefs about ultimate
ends such as an afterlife that includes heaven or hell, and a day of judgment (Greeley &
Hout, 2006; Lester et al., 2001–2002). Finally, conservative Christians institute specific
social norms that follow from these other aspects of their worldview. For example, Chris-
tian fundamentalism has been consistently linked with negative attitudes toward homosex-
uality (Altemeyer & Hunsberger, 1992; Laythe, Finkel, Bringle, & Kirkpatrick, 2002) –
but not necessarily toward homosexual people (Ford, Brignall, VanValey, & Macaluso,
2009; Mak & Tsang, 2008).
A closer examination of the components of the conservative Christian worldview allow
us to imagine that some, if not all, of these components might differ between individuals
as we incorporate other specific personal, social, and environmental influences (e.g.,
gender, parenting, or social class). Indeed, these elements can have their own associated
collective worldviews, which may interact with the conservative Christian worldview at
more and more textured levels both at the cultural level and in the formation of individ-
ual worldviews. Thus, with increasing specificity, we can move from understanding the
worldview of the group to understanding the components of that worldview, as well as
the worldviews of particular individuals.
The effect of worldviews on social cognition and behavior

Not only do the studies of religion and culture stand to be enhanced by investigating
human psychology through the lens of worldview, this integrated approach opens new
lines of inquiry and allows for novel hypotheses regarding the effect of worldviews on
social cognition and behavior. From a cognitive perspective, for example, variation in the
meaningfulness and structure of seemingly universal ontological categories (e.g., human
or animal) has been shown to impact attitudes concerning environmental resources – an
important but under-studied area of research (e.g., Herrmann, Waxman, & Medin, 2010;
Medin, Ross, & Cox, 2006). Different environmental cues, symbols, or word primes may
also elicit different affective and behavioral responses given the central role that language
plays in the construction of an individual or shared worldview. How might the same cues
(e.g., a homeless man, a New York mosque) trigger different behavioral responses in
individuals with diverse worldviews? Decision theorists might explore variation in the
extent to which certain worldviews endorse heuristic versus logical reasoning in judgment
and decision-making; for example, giving more or less importance to evolution versus
creationism. Psychologists have also been intensely interested in racial prejudice – particu-
larly as prejudice and stereotyping relate to perceived threats (e.g., Cottrell & Neuberg,
2005). From a worldview perspective, we may ask whether people are also likely to be
prejudiced toward those with different worldviews.
Greater openness to considering religious and spiritual factors in mental health has also
stimulated a number of very practical questions that can be addressed quite well by
worldview psychology. To what extent should clinicians support the use of religious
practices that the patient deems to be therapeutic? Recently, clinicians have provided
considerable direction and encouragement for clinicians who work with individuals from
various faith traditions in the Handbook of Spirituality and Worldview in Clinical Practice
(Josephson & Peteet, 2004).
Worldview psychology is no less important in the sub-field of positive psychology and
in defining well-being. Diener, Suh, Lucas, and Smith (1999), in a review of cross-cul-
tural research, have suggested that such research ought to be extended to account for
different ideological standards of well-being. Whereas some may advocate an individualis-

tic self-satisfying lifestyle as exemplary of a life well-lived (e.g., Haybron, 2000), others
with a different worldview would argue that true human flourishing is not necessarily
measured by the pleasurable feelings of joy which result from having one’s needs and
desires met. Instead, some would conceptualize the best life as one of self-discipline and
self-denial (e.g., Tirosh-Samuelson, 2003).
Finally, recasting culture and religion in terms of worldview psychology would open
new lines of trans-disciplinary communication allowing the cross pollination of research
ideas between philosophers, cultural anthropologists, and religious studies scholars who
have also used the construct of worldview in decades of research. One area of pressing
concern for all, for example, is the development of strategies to alleviate religious and
national cultural conflict in an increasingly global community. For example, Eidelson and
Eidelson (2003) have identified five worldview beliefs at both the individual and group
level that may lead to group conflict.
Toward a Psychology of Worldview

Religion is not just about laws and coping, and national culture does not exist in a philo-
sophical vacuum. Instead, religious, scientific, secularist, and nationalist beliefs and atti-
tudes influence the whole of human experience. These diverse kinds of cultures provide
an ontological framework defining who or what is in the world, and are shaped by the
unique language, vocabulary, and symbols through which people filter their perceptions.
Further, these cultural influences richly inform each person’s proximate and ultimate
goals, moral values, social norms, and ideal ways of reasoning about problems. Thus,
although there are important differences between the constructs religion and culture, a
person’s set of beliefs about what is, what can be known, values, ultimate goals, social
norms and practices are fully and usefully subsumed under the theoretical construct of
worldview.
Psychologists who study religion and those who study culture are both concerned with
cultural influences on lifespan development, health outcomes, social behavior, cognition,
affect, and group dynamics. Yet, presently, these sub-fields remain divided with separate
journals, conferences, pre-conferences, and researchers specializing in only one of the two
subject areas. We have argued that a psychology of worldview would provide a much
needed integrative framework and would give overdue attention to the bi-directional
influences of religion and national culture, to trans-national religious cultures in cultural
psychology, to non-religious systems of thought in the psychology of religion, and would
address the psychological processes that underlie religious and national cultural conflict.
Research advances in the psychology of worldview will require investigations of the
six domains across religious and national cultures and how the components interrelate: (i)
ontology (e.g., categorization, person perception, etc.); (ii) epistemology (e.g., problem
solving, decision theory, heuristics, etc.); (iii) semiotics (e.g., language, symbols, priming
effects, etc.); (iv) axiology (e.g., moral development, moral reason, emotion, etc.); (v) tel-
eology (e.g., fundamental goals, possible selves, ideal selves, beliefs about afterlife, etc.);
and (vi) praxeology (e.g., social norms, social behavior, social structure, etc.) A second
important area of research will be the interplay between individual and collective world-
views, the transformation of worldviews, and the role that group leaders play in establish-
ing or reinforcing certain beliefs and attitudes. Further, research investigating the impact
of individual and collective worldviews on cultural conflict should provide new insights
for peace psychology in an increasingly global community. In sum, we advocate the
psychology of worldview as a unifying framework with which to re-consider the univer-

sal and particular dimensions of human psychology.
Short Biographies
Kathryn A. Johnson is a doctoral student in social psychology at Arizona State University
(ASU). She has received an M.A. in Psychology and an M.A. in Religious Studies from
ASU. Her research focuses on differences in the perception of non-human agents and the
construction of personhood across ethnic and religious cultural groups. She is committed
to using her research to help people with divergent worldviews develop meta-cognitive
strategies to improve academic achievement in predominately white, Western, secular
university environments. She has published in the Journal of Religious Ethics, the Journal for
Diversity in Higher Education, and Psychonomic Bulletin and Review. She has also presented
her findings at trans-disciplinary conferences as well as conferences sponsored by the
Society for Personality and Social Psychology.
Eric D. Hill (Ph.D., Arizona State University) is Visiting Assistant Professor of psychol-
ogy at Albion College. His research primarily focuses on religious fundamentalism, cog-
nitive styles, and prejudice. His work has been published in Personality and Social
Psychology Bulletin, British Journal of Psychology, Multivariate Behavioral Research, International
Journal of Primatology, and Sex Roles. He is a winner of the Darwyn and Marie Linder
award for excellence in social psychology at Arizona State University and the Margaret
Floy Washburn Award at Oglethorpe University.
Adam B. Cohen (Ph.D., University of Pennsylvania) is Assistant Professor of psychol-
ogy at Arizona State University, USA. His research fuses cultural and evolutionary
approaches, especially on religion. He is the author of 50 or so articles and chapters,
including in leading journals such as American Psychologist, Journal of Personality and Social
Psychology, and Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin. He is on the editorial boards of
the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Social and Personality Psychological Science, the
Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, and Religion, Brain, and Behavior. He was the
2009 Margaret Gorman early career award winner from the American Psychological
Association.
Endnote
* Correspondence address: Department of Psychology, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ 85287, USA. Email:
adamcohen@asu.edu
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Integrating the Study of Culture and Religion: Toward a

Integrating the Study of Culture and Religion: Toward a Psychology of

ª 2011 The Authors

Worldview, Culture, and Religion

Bi-directionality of religious and national culture

Religions as trans-national cultures

Worldview: an integrative framework

The Psychology of Worldview

Six components of worldview

components as characteristic of worldviews: ontology (here we include other branches of

Language (i.e., semiotics) and epistemology

Moral concerns – axiology

Praxeology and teleology

Worldviews at the individual and group level

The effect of worldviews on social cognition and behavior

different ideological standards of well-being. Whereas some may advocate an individualis-

Toward a Psychology of Worldview

psychology of worldview as a unifying framework with which to re-consider the univer-

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