Implicit Religion in the Psychology of Religion: What the (Psychology) Papers Say

To gauge the use of the term ‘implicit religion’ within the psychology of religion, the present study examined the prevalence of the term within published articles covered by the main bibliographic database in psychology, PsycINFO. For purposes of comparison, the prevalence of the term ‘implicit religion’ was also examined within leading social science, religion and sociology bibliographic databases. The number of citations of ‘implicit religion’ demonstrated that the term is currently almost non-existent in usage within psychology journals abstracted by PsycINFO (n=1), or among social science journals abstracted by ASSIA: Applied Social Sciences Index and Abstracts (n=7). However, it is more widely used in religion journals abstracted by ATLAReligion (n=22), and sociology journals abstracted by Sociological Abstracts (n=59). These findings provide further empirical evidence to support the conclusion drawn by Gollnick (2002) that the term ‘implicit religion’ has not gained the widespread attention of psychologists of religion