RELIGION AND THE TRUE-SELF: IS RELIGION A FACTOR IN THE DETERMINATION OF THE TRUE-SELF?

Abstract

The relationship between religion and the self has long been discussed. The current project specifically examines the way religious beliefs relate to the feeling that people know their true selves. I hypothesize that strong religious beliefs can foster the feeling that one knows who he/she really is. To test this idea, an experiment was conducted that manipulated people’s confidence in their religious beliefs and then assessed their perceived true self-knowledge. Results revealed that, consistent with predictions, people who were led to question their confidence in their religious beliefs reported less perceived true self-knowledge than their counterparts who were not led to question their confidence in their religious beliefs. By comparison, perceived knowledge of other self-aspects (actual, ideal) was unaffected by the manipulation. This suggests that religion can serve as a source of self-knowledge, particularly knowledge of the true self. The implications of this relationship provide a better understanding of the various aspects of these different self-concepts and of the relationship between religion and the self.