One God but Three Concepts: Complexity in Christians' Representations of God

Research exploring God representations has tended to assume that these constructs are unitary in nature. However, a considerable research literature has illustrated ways in which people's representations of self and others are complex. Given that Christians believe in 1 God but also the 3 disti...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Psychology of religion and spirituality 2017-02, Vol.9 (1), p.95-105
Main Authors: Sharp, Carissa A., Rentfrow, Peter J., Gibson, Nicholas J. S.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Christians
Emotions
Female
God
God Concepts
Human
Male
Personality
Reaction time
Religion
Religion & psychology
Religious Beliefs
Self-Concept
Theology
Trinity
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Summary:Research exploring God representations has tended to assume that these constructs are unitary in nature. However, a considerable research literature has illustrated ways in which people's representations of self and others are complex. Given that Christians believe in 1 God but also the 3 distinct members of the Trinity, the present research used this theological construct to test whether religious believers can have structurally complex God representations, examining within-subject differences in Christian participants' understandings of God the Father, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit. Study 1 compared descriptions of the Trinity using adjective checklists, self/other overlap, and target-directed emotions; Study 2 compared personality judgments of the Trinity; and Study 3 investigated the relative salience of each way of thinking about God using a reaction time (RT) paradigm. Results demonstrated that, consistent with believers having cognitively complex God representations, participants had differentiated ways of thinking about and relating to each member of the Trinity.
ISSN:1941-1022
1943-1562
DOI:10.1037/rel0000053