Psychological Effects of Religious Practice

Beginning Your Research

Searching for literature
Develop a list of search terms based on your topic (psychology and religion) through:
-Keyword brainstorming
-Similar phrases to represent topic (i.e. psychological aspects of religion)

Varying aspects of a topic (examples):

1. Role of religion in psychotherapists' bias?
2. Occurrence of depression in those that are religious or non-religious?
3. Social adjustment of children from religiously affiliated homes?

Identify broad categories into which your topic fits.

Use reference resources, like specialized encyclopedias, to learn basic information about your topic. Knowing how scholars talk about a topic allows you to research more effectively and home-in on what you are really interested in knowing.

Using Boolean terms AND and OR

Reference Resources

Begin your research by consulting a subject encyclopedia. Get a summary of the broad subject area you wish to study and choose additional key terms, concepts, events, important authors, and citations to further information.

Note: The Gale EBooks collection and the Sage Knowledge E-reference Collection consist of a tremendous variety of subject specific encyclopedias, and are good places for background information, and to begin searches and gathering resources.

For example, a keyword search in Gale EBooks for "Psychology and Religion" returns more than 460 results, including this entry: 

Hood, R. W., Jr. (2012). Psychology and Religion. In V. S. Ramachandran (Ed.), Encyclopedia of Human Behavior (2nd ed., Vol. 3, pp. 201-208). London: Academic Press.