Contents
Application of the «positions of perception» questionnaire to assess the relationship between the religious worldview and the positions of perception.
1. Introduction
One of the aspects of a person’s perception of a situation in practical psychology is described by the concept of «position of perception».
There are five main, classic positions:
0. Zero position
This position was historically added after the first ones (hence the number) and denotes their absence. The zero position consists in a stereotyped reaction, submission to external forces, requirements, standards, traditions, one’s own habits and social stereotypes.
1. First position
Orientation to own, personal interests, initiatives, needs, desires.
2. Second position
Understanding and taking into account the interests, needs and desires of the interlocutor, partner,
3. Third position
A detached look «from the outside», assessing the situation as objectively and impartially as possible.
4. Fourth position
Summarizing previous approaches, systemic view. This position, being synthetic, is rarely used in analysis.
In addition, we introduced two more:
5. Passive first position
Uncontrolled dependence on one’s own, personal interests, needs, desires, the psychological need to make them the first priority.
6. Passive second position
Uncontrolled dependence on the interests, needs and desires of the interlocutor, partner, exposure to external influence.
Thus, the resulting set of scales was divided into two triads:
Scales I, II and III as active, controlled skills, abilities, skills and
Scales O, n1 and n2 as uncontrolled passive dependencies.
2. Methods
The questionnaire «Positions of perception» (own development) was used for the study. The questionnaire was presented through a web interface using the Internet to 1456 respondents, aged 12 to 70 years, 1025 women and 431 men.
According to religious views, the respondents were divided as follows:
Based on the results of other studies, it was decided not to classify Judaism as a separate group, since their proportion in the sample was insufficient for statistical processing.
The results obtained were stenised in accordance with the methodology.
3. Results
Table 1. Average values of the scales of perception positions in accordance with the worldview.
Figure 1. Average values of the scales of perception positions in accordance with the worldview.
First of all, we consider the ratio of the upper and lower triads as indicators of activity and awareness of life position. From this point of view, theistic religions associated with dogmatism and spiritual submission to religious authority turned out to be leaders of stereotyped perception in the first place and dependent positions in the second place. In this regard, Islam demonstrates the most developed lower triad, and attracts an exceptionally high value of n1 with a low value of I.
Orthodoxy looks better in all indicators, except for I, peak II is especially pleasing, even higher than that of the “other Christianity”. Scale III is also somewhat higher than that of the «other Christianity», but on all scales of the lower triad, Orthodoxy loses to other Christian denominations.
Against this background, Buddhism looks very advantageous, with a fairly evenly developed upper triad and a uniformly reduced lower one, beating not only theistic religions in all respects, but also atheism on scales II, O and n1. The profile of Buddhism resembles that of people who have taken personality development trainings from the related study.
Atheism shows a profile that is interesting to interpret. Abnormally low II and n2 with high I and n1, combined with a low O scale and high III, suggests individualism and rationalism at the same time. Nothing similar to this profile was found either in this or in previous studies conducted using the Perceptual Position Questionnaire.
Agnosticism shows an abnormally low O scale, at the limit of the «normal» range of indicators. The rest of the scales are quite high in the upper triad and low in the lower.
The indicators of the “other” group are very interesting. Unfortunately, the questionnaire did not provide an open answer to the question of religion, so one can only guess which religions gave such results. The entire upper triad is exceptionally developed, in the lower n2 it is less only in atheism, and O — only in agnosticism. In the future, we will certainly try to find out what worldview gives such a result.
Thus, we see the most harmonious indicators among Buddhists, agnostics and mysterious representatives of undeclared religions and confessions.