TITLE:
Are Religious Affections Positive or Negative?—The Role of Religious Affections on Executive Control
AUTHORS:
Hailan Liu, Qin Zhang
KEYWORDS:
Religious Affections; Executive Control; Positive Emotions; Negative Emotions
JOURNAL NAME:
Psychology,
Vol.4 No.12,
December
18,
2013
ABSTRACT:
The present study
investigated the influence of religious affections on executive control
compared with positive and negative emotions using emotional priming paradigm
and the letter flanker task. 58 participants (Tibetan Buddhists, 28 males and
30 females) were required to identify the central target letter after primed by
religious, positive, or negative pictures. There was a space (loose) or no
space (close) between neighboring letters. The results revealed that in close
condition both religious affections-prime and negative emotional-prime reduced
the flanker effect in response accuracy (ACC) compared to positive emotional-prime
for female participants. It means that religious affections do not function as
positive emotions on executive control. Moreover, for females, when primed by
religious pictures, the ACC flanker effect was negatively related to the
arousal of religious pictures, but when primed by negative pictures, the
flanker effect in response time was positively related to the valence of
negative pictures. The correlation analysis indicates that religious affections
and negative emotions may influence executive control in different ways. These
findings suggest that religious affections exert their special influence on
executive control, not simply positive or negative.