Linguistic markers of religious fundamentalism : an Internet study

Outside of a purely individual dimension religion exists in the form of texts, traditions, and symbols, and in a narrower perspective, religion exists in individual’s behaviors, rites, and habits. Religion can be conceptualized as a cognitive phenomenon in that every religious system includes a set of explicit and implicit propositions held to be true. Following this path we can observe the relationship between particular forms of religious commitment and the organization of thought. Whether religion is considered a cognitive organization of beliefs or a cognitive schema itself (McIntosh, 1995), there is no doubt that the beliefs system affects how people structure their understanding of the world. This is especially true for religious fundamentalists, where the system of beliefs is presumed to have a broad and profound reach in the individual’s worldview. One interesting way of looking at religious fundamentalism from a cognitive perspective is through the analysis of language (Pennebaker & Francis 1999; Pennebaker et al. 2003). Data is presented from an analysis of written essays not strictly related to religious topics. Significant differences in patterns of pronoun use, religious words, and other linguistic categories support --among other things-- the theory that sees religious fundamentalists as having a stronger group identity than non-fundamentalistsEducational Psycholog