Belief in a controlling God rises when personal control is threatened.

Evidence

A religious worldview covers the range of human experiences (e.g., death, sex, family, society), is easily accessible, and usually provides a set of beliefs and values that govern choices across the behavioral spectrum (Hood et al., 2009). In particular, a religious worldview affords the individual a base from which to restore meaning and a sense of control when events cause disturbance to an individual’s life (Hood et al., 2009; Kay, Whitson, Gaucher, & Galinsky, 2009; Vail et al., 2010). One reason it has been argued that religion is a particular potent force is that religion, unlike secular meaning systems (e.g., political ideologies or cultural values), is able to deal with the problem of death and morality salience. When individuals are reminded of their own death, this heightens their belief in supernatural powers, such as a god (Vail et al., 2010). Terror management theorists argue the power of religion is two-fold, one it provides a group membership, and two, most religions provide an explanation for what occurs after death. … In particular, Laurin, Kay, and Moscovitch (2008) found that when individuals were asked to visualize a situation that produced high anxiety that also implied low personal control, they were more likely to believe in a controlling God. They conclude that one of the functions of a belief in God is to help restore order and a sense of control in situations in which low personal control is coupled with high anxiety (Laurin et al., 2008). — Roderick M. Kramer, Geoffrey J. Leonardelli, Robert W. Livingston, Social Cognition, Social Identity, and…, 891

Categorization

• XREF: The mechanism that anxiety + low control drives supernatural belief could cross-check with how outgroup memberships supply compensatory control, relevant to the reader’s prejudice-psychology thread on ingroup/outgroup functions.
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Roderick M. Kramer, Geoffrey J. Leonardelli, Robert W. Livingston, Social Cognition, Social Identity, and…, 891