Doctoral Dissertation: The Call to Mediumship: Social, Psychological, and Psychobiological Characteristics of Participant in an Afro-Brazilian Religion

博士论文：对媒介的呼唤：非裔巴西宗教参与者的社会、心理和心理生物学特征

• 批准号: 0075796
• 负责人: Carol Worthman
• 金额: $ 1.2万
• 依托单位: Emory University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2000
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2000-08-15 至 2001-12-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=0075796&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Doctoral; Dissertation; Call; Mediumship; Social

This research, which rests at the interface of anthropology, psychobiology, and mental health, will make an important contribution to our understanding of the social, cultural, and biological dimensions of religious experiences. Specifically, this project asks what characteristics distinguish religious adepts from other religious participants, and what if any relationship exists between certain types of religious participation, and mental illness, among members of a Brazilian religion. Religious adepts, or mediums, have typically been viewed as socially and/or psychologically marginal individuals who use religious participation as a sanctioned outlet for tendencies often equated with western categories of mental illness. The biological nature of the altered states of consciousness often associated with this type of religious participation suggests that physiological antecedents might be among the factors that distinguish these individuals from other religious participants. The contribution of social and psychological factors to the development, expression, and experience of such physiological predisposition needs to be examined in contexts like Salvador Brazil, in which religious belief systems affect concepts of deviance and normality, and may shape different outcomes for such individuals than in environments dominated by psychomedical paradigms. This 12-month psychobio-cultural study proposes to employ a combination of ethnographic, psychological, and psychobiological methods to explore the confluence of three domains in the lives of adepts who play the role of spirit medium in Brazilian Candomble : social factors, including demographic and life history variables; psychological characteristics, including personality traits and psychological symptoms; and psychobiology, in the form of patterns of attention and arousal regulation. This study will contribute to the following: 1) explore factors that predispose individuals to mediumship, 2) address questions surrounding the relationship of ritualized altered states of consciousness to psychopathology, and 3) contribute information that could help improve psychomedical approaches to mental illness in non-western contexts.

这项结合人类学、心理生物学和心理健康的研究，将对我们理解宗教体验的社会、文化和生物层面做出重要贡献。具体来说，这个项目询问了哪些特征将宗教专家与其他宗教参与者区分开来，以及巴西宗教成员中某些类型的宗教参与与精神疾病之间是否存在任何关系。宗教专家或灵媒通常被视为社会和/或心理边缘的个体，他们将宗教参与作为一种被认可的发泄方式，这种倾向通常等同于西方的精神疾病类别。意识状态改变的生物学本质通常与这种类型的宗教参与有关，这表明生理上的前因可能是将这些人与其他宗教参与者区分开来的因素之一。社会和心理因素对这种生理倾向的发展、表达和体验的贡献需要在像萨尔瓦多巴西这样的环境中进行研究，在这些环境中，宗教信仰体系影响着越轨和正常的概念，并且可能对这些个体形成不同的结果，而不是在由精神医学范式主导的环境中。这项为期12个月的心理生物文化研究建议采用民族志、心理学和心理生物学相结合的方法来探索在巴西蜡烛中扮演精神媒介角色的专家生活中的三个领域的融合：社会因素，包括人口统计学和生活史变量；心理特征，包括人格特征和心理症状；以及心理生物学，以注意力和觉醒调节模式的形式。本研究将在以下方面做出贡献：1)探索使个体倾向于灵媒的因素，2)解决围绕意识仪式化改变状态与精神病理学之间关系的问题，3)提供有助于改善非西方环境下精神疾病的精神医学方法的信息。