Religious belief as compensatory control.
Personality and social psychology review : an official journal of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, Inc February 1, 2010 Aaron C Kay, Danielle Gaucher, Ian M. McGregor et al.
The authors review experimental evidence that religious conviction can be a defensive source of compensatory control when personal or external sources of control are low. They show evidence that (a) belief in religious deities and secular institutions can serve as external forms of control that can compensate for manipulations that lower personal control and (b) religious conviction can also...