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Family and Religion

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Encyclopedia of Psychology and Religion

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Scholarship documents close connections between psychology and religion, as well as between psychology and family, manifest in part by the existence of two journals sponsored by the American Psychological Association, namely Psychology of Religion and Spirituality and the Journal of Family Psychology. Yet there is no APA journal at the nexus of family and religion. However, hundreds of scholarly articles (see Mahoney 2010) and a few scholarly books (see Marks and Dollahite 2017) indicate that religion and family are also closely connected. Space will not permit mention of all the ways that family and religion are deeply entwined, based on psychological research. Here we mention only a few of the most important recent findings.

Religion can be powerful and religious involvement has been shown to have both positive and negative effects on marriage and family life. There are various dualities at the nexus of religion and family life that create the potential for religious involvement to...

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Family Life, Brigham Young University, Provo, UT, USA

    David C. Dollahite

Authors
  1. David C. Dollahite
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  2. Loren D. Marks
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to David C. Dollahite .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. University of Connecticut, Storrs, CT, USA

    David A. Leeming

  2. Blanton-Peale Institute, New York, NY, USA

    David A. Leeming

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Dollahite, D.C., Marks, L.D. (2020). Family and Religion. In: Leeming, D.A. (eds) Encyclopedia of Psychology and Religion. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-24348-7_200250

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