This handbook offers a comprehensive resource for exploring core elements of the psychology of religion. Utilizing a systematic template to describe the state of the field across thirty-two regions of the globe, it charts the subject's historical background and current research trends. The chapters also highlight common pitfalls and suggest collaborative topics for future research. By leveraging the Ingelhart-Welzel Cultural Values Framework, the text introduces key questions emerging from non-Western contexts, challenges culturally laden assumptions and promotes collaborative, international perspectives. Featuring contributions from researchers around the world on the psychology of religion within their respective geographical and cultural contexts, the work brings new voices into the conversation and offers fresh avenues of exploration for scholars and graduate students studying the psychology of religion, social psychology, religion, and theology.
Basu, Jayanti: - Jayanti Basu is a retired Professor of Applied Psychology at the University of Calcutta, West Bengal, with 39 years' worth of experience. She is also a registered psychoanalyst. Professor Basu has authored over 100 published papers and book chapters in international journals and edited volumes, as well as a book on the Bengal Partition.
DeMarinis, Valerie: - Valerie DeMarinis holds concomitant professorships in the Department of Theology, Uppsala University, and the Department of Public Health and Clinical Medicine, Umeå University, Sweden. She is also Professor of Public Mental Health Promotion at the Innlandet Hospital Trust, Norway. Professor DeMarinis's research projects include clinical psychology of religion, existential meaning-making, public mental health promotion and forced migration.
Ladd, Kevin L.: - Kevin L. Ladd is Chancellor's Professor of Psychology at Indiana University South Bend, USA. He is an active leader in the International Association for the Psychology of Religion, Editor-in-Chief of the Archive for the Psychology of Religion, and former President of APA Division 36. His research investigates prayer, Open Science, and theatrical magic.
Ladd, Meleah L.: - Meleah L. Ladd is Associate Scholar for Research in the Social Psychology of Religion Lab, Psychology Department at Indiana University South Bend, USA. With degrees in music performance and pedagogy, and medieval musicology, and a Ph.D in liturgical theology, her interests center around ritual, the role of food in spiritual experience, and the domestic church.
Ok, Üzeyir: - Üzeyir Ok is a Professor of Psychology of Religion at the Faculty of Education, Bolu Abant İzzet Baysal University, Türkiye. He has been influential in developing the field in Türkiye and as a leader in the International Association for the Psychology of Religion. His research interests primarily include religious doubt, personality, and faith development.
Zangari, Wellington: - Wellington Zangari is Professor of Psychology in the Institute of Psychology at the University of São Paulo, Brazil. He also holds coordinator positions in the Social Psychology of Religion Laboratory and the Inter Psi-Psychosocial Studies Laboratory. Professor Zangari is also a co-author of Fundamentals of the Psychology of Religion (2022).
