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MikeW
08 March 2011, 03:49 AM
Hello, my name is Michael and I am a post graduate student currently performing research into the psychology of religion for my Msc with the Open University. My research is in measuring similarities and differences between scientific and religious thought. In this study I am looking at levels of open-mindedness between those who have religious belief and those who do not. I am in need of participants and I was wondering if there would be any chance of anyone helping me out by taking my survey? It only takes 5 minutes to complete and it is completely anonymous. If you would like to look at the survey this is the link:

http://www.surveygizmo.com/s3/434062/Composite-Actively-Open-Minded-Scale

I really would appreciate greatly any help you could give me. If you have any questions please feel free to email me at michaelwhitehouse@live.co.uk or post here . Thank you for your time.

sanjaya
09 March 2011, 12:39 PM
I'd be happy to take your survey. But while I don't know anything about psychology, I do know about statistics. Won't soliciting participants specifically from a Hindu forum introduce a nonrandom sample and thus cause some (probably non-measurable) bias in your data? Furthermore, this forum has biases that are specific to our group of Hindus, which may be statistically significant with respect to the general population of Hindus. For example, just awhile back we were talking about how many of us make anti-Christian comments on a frequent basis. Thus if you were to ask (for example) "how negatively do you view Christianity on a scale of 1 to 10", the responses of people here may be several standard deviations away from the mean of a random sample of Hindus. There are of course many other biases to consider, such as the large fraction of Western Hindus, etc.

Maybe something to consider. Or maybe not; again I don't know much about psychology.

Eastern Mind
09 March 2011, 05:44 PM
Vannakkam Mike: Yes I volunteered. I know its too late now, but I felt the survey needed a neutral choice as well. Sometimes I was just plain undecided. I agree somewhat with sanjaya, but I presume you are putting this on some other forums as well. The first part did give an indicator of religion or not. I am not totally convinced of your motives either, as it could just be a set up to argue against atheism. As with all other surveys, I am suspicious, so please don't take offense. If a surveying company phones me up and can't tell me which company hired them, I simply refuse. I want to know who is asking.

The idea of being open - minded and only having the two choices - scientific versus faith is too simple of a model. Within faith itself we have some totally narrow minded people. One doesn't need a survey to see that. So too with the science community.

However it goes, including your sampling methods, I'd be interested in the results.

Aum Namasivaya

sm78
10 March 2011, 12:00 AM
Nice survey questions - I think adequate to eliminate subjective bias. But yes, you need all community representation. More than between atheist vs theist, it will be interesting to see the results for Hindu vs Christian say.

Adhvagat
10 March 2011, 01:58 AM
I'm starting a post-graduation course on Analytical Psychology. Is your field of Psychology Junguian in any way?

Obelisk
10 March 2011, 02:05 AM
Namaste Mike,

Just took the survey. Nice questions - I haven't studied psychology yet, but I can see how they can get anyone thinking, for honest responses. :) Had to take a bit of time on a few of those because my answer was a bit complicated, hehe. All the best for your research.

Just a little sidenote, I generally disagree with the "science vs. religion" position because I don't consider them to be antagonistic. Also since the survey questions mainly asked about "beliefs" and not "faith", as I consider both to be notably different, I answered accordingly. ;) :)

Believer
10 March 2011, 11:04 AM
I'm starting a post-graduation course on Analytical Psychology.
Now, that is a dirty word in this forum! ;)

sunyata07
10 March 2011, 11:20 AM
Namaste Mike,

I took the survey, but I also had the same thoughts as Sanjaya on your subject sample. As the overwhelming majority of people here are theistic Hindus (along with a handful of eclectic Westerners), won't your sample population be a bit skewed?

I also agree with EM on your model of religion vs. science. It's a bit simplistic to categorise people as either going by faith or facts alone, but maybe you've already worked this out in your study?

Being a psych graduate myself, I'm a bit intrigued as to what this psychology of religion is all about. Any links you could suggest?

Om namah Shivaya

Adhvagat
10 March 2011, 11:31 AM
Now, that is a dirty word in this forum! ;)

Oh I read the other thread where SM went crazy over it.

However you can also call it Depth Psychology or Junguian Psychology. Whatever keeps SM's mood better. :)

MikeW
10 March 2011, 01:23 PM
Hi Everyone, thank you for the kind welcome. I can tell you the welcome I've had at these forums is far better than some other places I have posted this. In some places people have been down right hostile towards me.

A great point was made about sample bias. This survey has been posted in a variety of different places including both spiritual and atheistic sample populations. Any problems or suggestions you guys have, keep them coming as it is important that I address any issues in my write up.

I also recognise ( and partially agree) with the idea that a neutral response option would be helpful. I didn't design this particular survey ( designing one from the ground up is outside of the remit of my course), but the author of this scale felt that without a neutral option people would be encouraged to commit.

Keep the great responses coming everyone, and if anyone has any ideas about other places I could post this let me know. Thanks again!

Eastern Mind
10 March 2011, 03:18 PM
Hi Everyone, thank you for the kind welcome. I can tell you the welcome I've had at these forums is far better than some other places I have posted this. In some places people have been down right hostile towards me.

A great point was made about sample bias. This survey has been posted in a variety of different places including both spiritual and atheistic sample populations. Any problems or suggestions you guys have, keep them coming as it is important that I address any issues in my write up.

I also recognise ( and partially agree) with the idea that a neutral response option would be helpful. I didn't design this particular survey ( designing one from the ground up is outside of the remit of my course), but the author of this scale felt that without a neutral option people would be encouraged to commit.

Keep the great responses coming everyone, and if anyone has any ideas about other places I could post this let me know. Thanks again!

Vannakkam Mike: I'm glad you got positive responses here. Maybe that says something about the nature of Hinduism too. :) Actually I didn't think we'd hear from you again. I searched using the first few words of your opening statement and discovered some other places you had posted it. One more larger forum I might suggest is religiousforums.com if you haven's already posted there. It is incredibly difficult to get a random sample these days. A simple example is that doing it this way you only get people who own computers and go to discussion forums. I may be wrong though as you could be very well taking it elsewhere.

Another odd factor here is that some people are very narrow minded about their open mindedness, if you get my drift. A claim to be open minded may really not be such as it means open-minded MY way. We have such schools of thought within Hinduism - tolerance MY way. But that's just an odd thing, and I think your survey probably does some justice at addressing that. Another idea you might consider in future is just anecdotal evidence, where people are allowed to fill in a note usually termed 'any additional comments.. at the end.

Aum Namasivaya

Believer
10 March 2011, 08:58 PM
MikeW,

Finished the survey; even though you have no say in the design of the survey, here are my comments on some of the questions:

----- Comments deleted to avoid any contamination of the survey.

Normally, I get Airline miles for doing a survey like this. :)