Date of Completion

5-15-2013

Degree Type

Honors Thesis - Campus Access

Discipline

Psychology (PSYC)

First Advisor

Adam W. Fingerhut, Ph.D.

Abstract

In day-to-day discourse, God is almost always referred to as male. Even those individuals who claim that God has no gender frequently utilize male pronouns to describe the deity. This characterization of God may make males feel closer to their higher power, but females are not afforded the same connectedness, especially for those females whose self-concept is dependent on their identification as a female. The current study examines whether females with strong female identities experience greater psychological well-being when God is presented as a female than when God is presented without gender or as male. Participants filled out a measure of collective self-esteem to measure strength of female identity, were randomly assigned to which gender of God they would experience, and then filled out scales of self-esteem, mood, and anxiety. Unfortunately there were no significant results, perhaps due to participants not complying completely with the manipulation. Further research must be done to determine if the gender of God presented significantly harms or benefits women.

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