宗教信仰中的情緒經驗被認為是宗教核心意涵，是影響人們接觸宗教或接受宗教的主要因素，但宗教對情緒的影響至今仍未有定論。過去研究指出，運用文字的閾下促發能夠激發語意相關概念，以避免探討宗教或情緒等議題時受到社會期許而隱藏真實的反應。本研究假設以慈愛與寬容形象的宗教聖者名稱進行閾下促發時，對正向情緒詞彙有較高的觸接性，且能影響詞彙重組作業中對正向情緒詞彙的偏好。本研究分為兩個實驗，實驗一以字彙判斷作業進行宗教聖者名稱之閾下促發，探討對情緒詞彙觸接性之影響，共96名在校學生參與研究，採3 x 2二因子混合設計，受試者間變項為宗教聖者名稱比率（0%、50%與100%），受試者內變項為詞彙之情緒價（正向與負向），依變項為參與者於字彙判斷作業對情緒詞彙之反應時間。研究結果顯示不同宗教聖者名稱比率並無主要效果，進一步分析發現不同宗教聖者名稱（媽祖、耶穌與觀音）對於詞彙的情緒價產生交互作用，耶穌之閾下刺激促進正向情緒詞彙判斷之反應時間，而觀音與媽祖之閾下刺激則對負向情緒詞彙反應時間有促進的趨勢。實驗二以詞彙重組作業探討宗教聖者名稱之閾下刺激是否進一步影響情緒詞彙之重組歷程，共90名在校學生參與研究，採受試者間單因子設計，變項為宗教聖者名稱比率（0%、50%與100%），依變項為正向情緒詞彙之重組能力。研究結果顯示不同宗教聖者名稱比率亦無主要效果，而進一步分析三種聖者名稱混合之閾下刺激對個別情緒詞彙之重組能力發現，負向情緒詞彙「憤怒」有較高的重組偏好。本研究之研究假設雖未獲得支持，仍發現宗教聖者名稱之閾下促發對情緒詞彙之觸接性與重組能力可能造成不同方向性的影響。本研究提供未來透過閾下促發方式探討宗教與情緒概念之參考。
Emotional experience has been regarded as core effect to religious belief, influencing whether accepting religion as belief or not. However, the relationship between them is still unclear. Previous studies showed that subliminal priming of words could be used in religious or emotional related research, because social desirability might cause participants hiding from real reaction. In this study, we assumed that trigger name of religious saints who has loving and forgiving image as religious words, would increase the accessibility of positive emotional words and facilitate the ability of recombination in positive emotional words. We addressed two experiment in this study. In the first experiment, 96 participants were asked to proceed lexical-decision task with priming three level of percentage of religious saints: 0%, 50% and 100%. Targets words were two valence of emotional words which were positive and negative and nonwords. Main effect of valence of emotional word was independent, but level of religious saints and interaction showed no difference. With advanced analysis, we found interaction between single name of religious saints (Ma-zu, Jesus and Guan-yin) and valence of emotional words. Subliminal priming with Jesus increased accessibility of positive words. Ma-zu and Guan-yin had tendency of increasing accessibility of negative words. In the second experiment, 90 participants were also primed with same level of religious saints as first experiment but using vigilance task as priming procedure. After priming task, emotional words recombination task would be conducted. The result didn’t show different ability of recombination in positive words among tree levels of religious saints. Analyzing the ability of recombination in emotional words individually, we found priming with mixed religious saints increased ability of recombination in “anger” which is one of negative words. Although the assumption hasn’t been supported, priming with religious saints would somehow influence accessibility of emotional words and ability of recombination in emotional words.
