It was during this week, in the lead-up to today’s supernaturally inclined date of Friday the 13th, that I learned the similarity between believing in Bigfoot and believing in The One, wrote columnist Micah Toub in :

This somewhat unsettling information was delivered to me not by the Weekly World News, but by Ian McGregor, a 91��ɫ psychology researcher [Faculty of Health]. With assistance from his grad student , McGregor has been studying what those in his field call “compensatory conviction”. I had been curious to find out about the usefulness of pinning one’s romantic hopes and dreams on things like astrology, synchronicity and fate. As it turns out, there is some.

In his lab, McGregor has his guests perform activities and answer questions that are meant to put them in an anxious mood. He then asks them to rate their level of confidence that they’ve found, as he puts it, “their soul mate or the person they are meant to be with.”

When they were rattled, subjects consistently rated their current relationship higher on the magic scale, using their partner as a balm to ease anxiety about other matters.

“If you’re feeling uncertain about a particular domain in your life – economics or academics or family, for instance – you’ll find another domain to find certainty,” McGregor explained. “Relationships can become an attractive domain for irrational conviction.”

Similarly uncertain subjects, McGregor told me, also calm themselves by exaggerating beliefs in supernatural phenomena, like heaven and hell. And yeah, Bigfoot.

. . .

In hindsight, it seems somewhat silly, but according to McGregor, a certain amount of silliness can be a good thing. He actually called it an “optimal margin of illusion,” which will also be the title of my first album. “People have a lot of illusions to protect them from anxiety,” McGregor told me. “But sometimes, positive illusions can actually come true. Sometimes people eventually develop better relationships because of them.” In other words, if your belief in astrology makes you optimistic about your current love interest, that superstitious optimism might be the thing that turns the two of you into a scientific fact.

For those who place themselves firmly on the skeptical side when it comes to the universal energy flow’s influence on love, McGregor pointed out that this doesn’t mean you're immune to illusion. “People can delude themselves about how great their partner is and how great they are,” he said, adding that these people who put too much faith in the awesomeness of their own will can become equally out of touch with reality.

He went even further: “The personal confidence illusions can spin into narcissism, where the person is living in their own mind, leaving a wake of rubble behind them as they flex their grandiose muscles.”

Posted by Elizabeth Monier-Williams, research communications officer, with files courtesy of YFile – 91��ɫ’s daily e-bulletin.

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In a series of studies, more than 600 participants were placed in anxiety-provoking or neutral situations and then asked to describe their personal goals and rate their degree of conviction for their religious ideals. This included asking participants whether they would give their lives for their faith or support a war in its defence.

Across all studies, anxious conditions caused participants to become more eagerly engaged in their ideals and extreme in their religious convictions. In one study, mulling over a personal dilemma caused a general surge toward more idealistic personal goals. In another, struggling with a confusing mathematical passage caused a spike in radical religious extremes. In yet another, reflecting on relationship uncertainties caused the same religious zeal reaction.

Researchers found that religious zeal reactions were most pronounced among participants with bold personalities (defined as having high self-esteem and being action-oriented, eager and tenacious) who were already vulnerable to anxiety and felt most hopeless about their daily goals in life.

A basic motivational process called reactive approach motivation (RAM) is responsible, according to lead researcher Ian McGregor, a professor in the Department of Psychology in 91��ɫ’s Faculty of Health. "Approach motivation is a tenacious state in which people become ‘locked and loaded’ on whatever goal or ideal they are promoting. They feel powerful, and thoughts and feelings related to other issues recede," he says.

"RAM is usually an adaptive goal regulation process that can reorient people toward alternative avenues for effective goal pursuit when they hit a snag. Our research shows that humans can sometimes co-opt RAM for short-term relief from anxiety. However, by simply promoting ideals and convictions in their own minds, people can activate approach motivation, narrow their motivational focus away from anxious problems and feel serene as a result," says McGregor.

Researchers also measured participants’ superstitious beliefs and deference toward a controlling God to distinguish religious zeal from meeker forms of devotion. "Anxiety-provoking threats sometimes also cause people to become paranoid and more submissive to externally controlling forces, so we wanted to rule out that interpretation for our results," he says. Anxious uncertainty had no effect on either superstition or religious submission.

Findings published last year in the journal by the same authors and collaborators at the University of Toronto found that strong religious beliefs are associated with low activity in the anterior cingulate cortex, the part of the brain that becomes active in anxious predicaments.

"Taken together, the results of this research program suggest that bold but vulnerable people gravitate to idealistic and religious extremes for relief from anxiety," McGregor says.

The findings, reported in two separate articles, "Anxious Uncertainty and Reactive Approach Motivation (RAM)" and "Reactive Approach Motivation (RAM) for Religion", were co-authored by McGregor and 91��ɫ graduate students Kyle Nash, Mike Prentice, Nikki Mann and Curtis Phills. Both articles appear in the July issue of Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.

The release was covered in the , The Peterborough Examiner and July 7:

Anxiety can lead people to become more radical in their religious beliefs, a 91��ɫ study says.

Researchers put more than 600 participants in anxiety-provoking or neutral situations and asked them to describe their personal goals and rate their degree of conviction for their religious ideals.

Lead researcher Ian McGregor, a psychology professor in 91��ɫ’s Faculty of Health, said a basic motivational process called reactive approach motivation (RAM) is responsible. “Approach motivation is a tenacious state in which people become ‘locked and loaded’ on whatever goal or ideal they are promoting. They feel powerful, and thoughts and feelings related to other issues recede,” he said in a release.

It also received coverage in the St. Catherines Standard July 10:

Anxiety can lead people to become more radical in their religious beliefs, a 91��ɫ study says.

Lead researcher Ian McGregor said a basic motivational process called reactive approach motivation (RAM) is responsible. “Approach motivation is a tenacious state in which people become ‘locked and loaded’ on whatever goal or ideal they are promoting. They feel powerful, and thoughts and feelings related to other issues recede,” he said in a release.

By Melissa Hughes, media relations officer.

Republished courtesy of YFile– 91��ɫ’s daily e-bulletin.

The post 91��ɫ researchers find anxiety may be at root of religious extremism appeared first on Research & Innovation.