Facilitation of religious experiences: the role of music and situational factors

Abstract

The current study investigated the facilitative relationship of religious music, religious mental set, and the receptive personality types of absorption and openness to reported personal religious experiences. The ubiquitous nature of music in religious traditions may be a sign that music plays a significant role in religious experiences. Past research has shown that environmental settings and mental set can facilitate a personal religious experience. In addition, people with certain personality types (i.e., intrinsic religious orientation) have been found to be more prone to report religious experiences. One hundred and fifty-seven college students participated in two sessions and their data were used in all analyses. In session one, the students completed measures including personality assessments. In session two, prior to receiving a group relaxation technique, participants were randomly assigned to receive one of four condition manipulations (i.e., religious music/religious mental set, no music/religious mental set, religious music/no mental set, or no music/no mental set). The results support the primary hypothesis that people high in absorption who listen to religious music while in a religious mental set are most likely to report having a religious experience. This highest level of religious experience was due to a synergetic effect of combining each of the three areas beyond the simple effect of summing the differences for higher absorption/lower absorption, religious music/no music, and religious mental set/no mental set. In addition, the results obtained from multiple regression models indicated that music and absorption significantly account for unique variance of the reported religious experiences. The current study supports the idea that the reports of religious experiences by everyday individuals may be more complex in nature than previously thought. Findings suggest that additional scientific investigations of everyday personal religious experiences are warranted.