psychology of religion

In the (present) article we describe the empirical study results of modern Russian Buddhists’ cognitive openness. Cognitive closure is considered as a mental process which allows making a clear choice, cutting off unnecessary, contradicting and distracting information. Cognitive closure has its opposition – cognitive openness. It is an ability to accept new various information that can be also contradictory; to integrate opposing points of view and to find compromises. We have used The Need for Closure Scale, a method elaborated by A. W.

Intrinsic religious motivation forms the basis of real religiosity as opposed to nominal religiosity which makes persons identify themselves with the definite confession, but it does not follow any religious practices. While studying Orthodox Christians’ intrinsic motivation we have used the Questionnaire made by I. Stojkovic and J. Miric, which consists of 50 respondents.

The problem of religious motivation gives a deeper understanding of the religious identity of believers, the religious values of systems and their coherence, the specifics of socio-psychological interaction. The religious motivation of the Jews is not well understood. The aim of the work is to study the religious motivation of the Jews and identify its specificity. The study is organized as a quantitative measurement using a psychological inventory and questionnaire and subsequent statistical analysis of the results. In our study, we used the model of Stojkovich I.