ABSTRACT
This conclusion presents some closing thoughts discussed in the preceding chapters of this book. The book combines theoretical innovations appearing since the 1980s, and known as the cognitive-evolutionary approach, with established approaches to studying the social and behavioral correlates of religiosity, and the classics in the psychological study of religion such as James and Freud. The book examines the basic psychological processes leading to religious thinking, the background for individual variations in religiosity resulting from identity, personality, and biology, and then looked at religion in historical and cultural contexts. The basic strategy to assess the effects of religiosity, followed by countless studies, has been to correlate religiosity, as a continuous variable, with other continuous psychological, sociological, and biological variables. Basic research relevant to psychological questions is also produced by so.
