Electrodermal Activity Implicating a Sympathetic Nervous System Response under the Perception of Sensing a Divine Presence—A Psychophysiological Analysis
Yoshija Walter, Andreas Altorfer
Psych February 3, 2023 DOI: 10.3390/psych5010010 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Experimental study Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Sample size | 37 |
| Population | Evangelical participants |
| Measures | electrodermal activity (EDA), galvanic skin response (GSR), skin conductance (SC) |
| Citations | 2 |
| Key findings | Skin conductance measures, including tonic and phasic signals and overall electrical skin conductance, were positively associated with the religious experience of sensing the presence of God. The authors state this supports their hypothesis that this experience under the influence of worship recruits the sympathetic nervous system. |
Abstract
Previous studies have suggested that religious worship experiences may recruit the autonomic nervous system (ANS) in an activating fashion. For this reason, we hypothesized that measurements of the electrodermal activity (EDA) would concur with the notion that the subjective experience of sensing the presence of God recruits a sympathetic nervous system response. We analyzed the EDA of 37 evangelical participants and calculated classic galvanic skin response (GSR) measures. Our experimental design included six conditions with and without music consisting of religious and non-religious songs plus a resting-state condition, which were used to induce a variance in the religious experience suitable for statistical analyses. Results showed that both tonic and phasic signals as well as the overall electrical skin conductance (SC) were positively associated with the religious experience, defined as sensing the presence of God. This implicates that we can accept the hypothesis that such a religious experience under the influence of worship seems to recruit the sympathetic nervous system.