Psychological Factors of Faith

Human beings have highly advanced neurophysiological mechanisms, the power of perception and reasoning, and superior adjustment organism. As a culture producer and language user human beings, live in a natural and social environment that needs to cope with and have a unique self. Human beings who are the doer and judge of good and evil have the ability of prediction and potential of self-transcendence. Despite these superior qualities, human beings have not always shown the same superiority in their lives and due to both they are in need of belief and their potential of faith, they have been a faithful being. Faith, which has a great effect on the individual's psychological and social life, is not composed of only one factor. The deep impact of faith on believer, the influence on personality, the production of strong emotions and behaviors are directly related to the psychological factors of faith. These psychological elements in the structure of faith, are cognitive, voluntary, emotional and behavioral factors. Faith, which constitutes a holistic structure with these factors, cannot be thought apart from these psychological factors that make it up, nor can it be reduced to any of these elements. Therefore, in order to fully understand and explain the faith, which is a psychological process in which the individual's cognition, will, emotion and behavior systems are personally involved, it is necessary to first understand the psychological elements in the structure of faith. In this article, taken from the master thesis titled "Religious Belief and Meaning ”, psychological factors of faith will be discussed