[Dharmic Empirics: Comprehensive Overview – updated 17 Dec. 2019]
Welcome to the Dharmic empirics moderated group listserv. This is a moderated listserv, so it may be a few hours before posts are approved. Below are descriptions of the group’s purpose, posting rules, and background. Every email you receive will have instructions for unsubscribing in the footer. When sent to the group, your subject line will be prefixed with “[DE]”. To share a message with the group, send your post to dharmicempirics@googlegroups.com.
GROUP DESCRIPTION[2019.12.17a]
The Dharmic Empirics list is for discussing/supporting the empirically-informed psychology of indigenous Indian religion/spirituality (e.g. Hinduism, Jainism, Sikhism, Indian Buddhism), especially by professional psychologists and students. Further background: http://dougoman.org/de/degroup.htm
POSTING RULES[2019.12.17b]
Posts to the Dharmic Empirics listserv should
1. Possess reasonably clear relevance to the empirical study of indigenous Indian (Dharmic) religious traditions, such as Hinduism, Jainism, Sikhism, and contemporary Buddhism in India;
2. Maintain civility;
3. Avoid promoting commercial goods or services;
4. Avoid sending copyrighted publications (appropriate off-list sharing is encouraged, although file attachments are not allowed in posts to this list).
ELIGIBILITY, JOINING, AND MODERATION[2019.12.17c]
Requests to join the group should be sent by email to both of the group’s current (founding) co-moderators: L. S. S. Manickam (lssmanickam [at] gmail.com) and Doug Oman (dougoman [at] berkeley.edu). The group is open to professionals and students interested in the topic who are in fields, especially psychology, that are relevant to the empirical study of indigenous Indian religion and/or spirituality. After you have read the fuller group background and explanation below, your request to join should include one to five sentences that explain your interest in joining, as well as your background as a professional or a student in a relevant field. The footer information attached to each post will provide instructions for unsubscribing. Other questions about the listserv that are not answered by this page’s information may be sent to either or both of the group’s co-moderators.
BACKGROUND & EXPLANATION[2019.12.17c]
This Dharmic Empirics email list emerged from a promotional membership drive offered to psychologists in India by the Society for the Psychology of Religion and Spirituality (Division 36 of the American Psychological Association), in conjunction with the May 2019 Indian religions special section that appeared in the society’s journal, Psychology of Religion and Spirituality. So many membership applications were received from Indian psychologists that this listserv has been created to facilitate communication between psychologists interested in the empirically-informed psychology of indigenous Indian religion/spirituality.
This group aims to facilitate the empirical and especially psychological study of indigenous Indian (“Dharmic”) religious traditions such as Hinduism, Jainism, Sikhism, and contemporary Indian Buddhism. Examples of empirical studies of Dharmic traditions include the three empirical papers highlighted in the May 2019 special section mentioned above and introduced by Oman (2019: Pandey & Gupta, 2019; Fincham et al., 2019; and Cooper et al., 2019). Other recent examples of empirical studies of indigenous Indian religion and/or spirituality include quantitative studies, such as
· Shilpa and Murthy (2012) in SAGE Open;
· Tarakeshwar et al. (2003) in Journal of Community Psychology;
· Suchday et al. (2018) in Psychology of Religion and Spirituality (for findings on the Hindu portion of the sample);
as well as qualitative studies that rely on interview data, such as
· Chandur and Sriram (2018) in Psychological Studies;
· Duggal and Basu (2012) in the Indian Journal of Clinical Psychology;
· Menon (2013) in Psychology & Developing Societies;
and review or empirically-oriented conceptual studies such as
· Ilavarasu et al. (2013) in International Journal of Yoga – Philosophy, Psychology and Parapsychology;
· Sedlmeier et al. (2012) in Psychological Bulletin (for Dharmic conceptual framework and studies of methods from Dharmic traditions).
Manickam (2008) has noted various historical obstacles to the development of empirical research on Indian traditions and has suggested steps to support its expansion, such as persistence without distorting the meaning of Indic concepts, and communication between researchers.
Textual studies, including the many extremely valuable theoretical, historical, and philosophical chapters in major books on Indian Psychology by Rao, Paranjpe and Dalal (2008), Cornelissen, Misra and Varma (2014), and others, are relevant as sources for theories needed to guide empirical studies of Dharmic traditions. Such philosophical and textual studies have greatly facilitated access to psychological ideas embedded in Dharmic traditions, but are not in themselves examples of the genre of quantitative or qualitative empirical research. Such approaches may be deemed complementary. Rao and Paranjpe (2016) affirm that Indian Psychology should use a “methodological pluralism” (p. 32) that can embrace interviews, phenomenology, participant observation, and case studies, as well as surveys, and experiments – all of which represent empirical methods, broadly understood. This listserv’s primary purpose therefore overlaps with the closely related field of Indian Psychology, yet is also distinct from it. Similarly, all interested individuals may also join the empirically-oriented discussion listserv sponsored by the US-based Society for the Psychology of Religion and Spirituality (link). Yet that listserv’s historical attention and expertise has focused on other traditions (e.g., Abrahamic). It was therefore felt that at the present time, a new listserv is warranted, and would not duplicate existing listservs.
To maintain focus, each post to this listserv is therefore expected to possess clear relevance to the empirical study of indigenous Indian (Dharmic) religious traditions. Posts lacking reasonably clear relevance may therefore be rejected by the moderators. If revised to make their relevance clearer, such posts may be resubmitted for renewed consideration. Posts should also maintain civility and should avoid promoting commercial goods and services, or sending copyrighted materials. Mention of professional publications by the poster that are relevant to the listserv topic is acceptable when likely to be of sufficient interest to the group.
REFERENCES
Cooper, A. N., May, R. W., Fincham, F. D., & Kamble, S. V. (2019). God(s) in minds: Understanding deity representation in Christian and Hindu families through social relations modeling. Psychology of Religion and Spirituality, 11, 111-122. https://doi.org/10.1037/rel0000237
Cornelissen, M., Misra, G., & Varma, S. (Eds.). (2014). Foundations and applications of Indian psychology (2nd ed.). Delhi: Pearson. https://books.google.com/books?id=B8xoBAAAQBAJ
Duggal, C., & Basu, J. (2012). How does belief in God influence our mental health and existential status? Indian Journal of Clinical Psychology, 39, 138-146.
Fincham, F. D., May, R. W., & Kamble, S. V. (2019). Are Hindu representations of the divine prototypically structured? Psychology of Religion and Spirituality, 11, 101-110. https://doi.org/10.1037/rel0000166
Ilavarasu, J., Mohan, S., & Hankey, A. (2013). Triguna as personality concept: Guidelines for empirical research. International Journal of Yoga – Philosophy, Psychology and Parapsychology, 1, 15-20. https://doi.org/10.4103/2347-5633.123287
Manickam, L. S. S. (2008). Research on Indian concepts of psychology: Major challenges and perspectives for future action. In K. R. Rao, A. C. Paranjpe, & A. K. Dalal (Eds.), Handbook of Indian psychology (pp. 492-505). New Delhi, India: Cambridge University Press India/Foundation Books.
Menon, U. (2013). The Hindu concept of self-refinement: Implicit yet meaningful. Psychology & Developing Societies, 25, 195-222. https://doi.org/10.1177/0971333613477320
Oman, D. (2019). Introduction to the special section: Psychology of Indian spirituality and religion, emerging perspectives Psychology of Religion and Spirituality, 11, 87-90. https://doi.org/10.1037/rel0000256
Pandey, J., & Gupta, M. (2019). Religion in the lives of Hindu widows: Narratives from Vrindavan, India. Psychology of Religion and Spirituality, 11, 91-100. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/rel0000230
Rao, K. R., Paranjpe, A. C., & Dalal, A. K. (Eds.). (2008). Handbook of Indian psychology. New Delhi: Cambridge University Press India. https://doi.org/10.1017/UPO9788175968448
Rao, K.R., & Paranjpe, A.C. (2016). Psychology in the Indian tradition. New Delhi; Heidelberg: Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-81-322-2440-2
Sedlmeier, P., Eberth, J., Schwarz, M., Zimmermann, D., Haarig, F., Jaeger, S., & Kunze, S. (2012). The psychological effects of meditation: A meta-analysis. Psychological Bulletin, 138, 1139-1171. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0028168
Shilpa, S., & Murthy, C. G. V. (2012). Development and standardization of Mysore Triguna Scale. SAGE Open, 2. https://doi.org/10.1177/2158244012436564
Suchday, S., Santoro, A. F., Ramanayake, N., Lewin, H., & Almeida, M. (2018). Religion, spirituality, globalization reflected in life beliefs among urban Asian Indian youth. Psychology of Religion and Spirituality, 10, 146-156. https://doi.org/10.1037/rel0000161
Tarakeshwar, N., Pargament, K. I., & Mahoney, A. (2003). Initial development of a measure of religious coping among Hindus. Journal of Community Psychology, 31, 607-628. https://doi.org/10.1002/jcop.10071
Note: This listserv is operated independently from the Society for the Psychology of Religion and Spirituality and other organizations.