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196525

Religion and the social order

Jacob A. Belzen

pp. 215-237

Abstract

In this final chapter we shall turn to a quite different approach within cultural psychology. We shall not inquire about the cultural part of psychic functioning of a group or an individual, but indulge in something that is more or less the opposite. We will address the psychic part in the development and the makeup of culture, or rather, of a selected subculture. We will turn again to the gereformeerden from the Netherlands, and try to understand how factors that might be conceptualized and explored by means of psychological theories and viewpoints have had an impact in their history. That history, in combination with that of several other groups in the Netherlands, has led to a social order, to a structure of society, that has been quite remarkable and for a long time has even been considered to be unique to the Netherlands. Although recent research has shown that the latter can no longer be maintained, so-called "pillarization" has been very characteristic of the Netherlands for the larger part of the twentieth century and continues to have effects to this day. Evidently, we first need to introduce the phenomenon.

Publication details

Published in:

Belzen Jacob A. (2010) Towards cultural psychology of religion: principles, approaches, applications. Dordrecht, Springer.

Pages: 215-237

DOI: 10.1007/978-90-481-3491-5_12

Full citation:

Belzen Jacob A. (2010) Religion and the social order, In: Towards cultural psychology of religion, Dordrecht, Springer, 215–237.