Literature Review Critique: Religiousness and Infidelity - Psychology

This report offers a critical analysis of a literature review focusing on the relationship between religiousness and infidelity, specifically critiquing the article "Religiousness and Infidelity: Attendance, but not Faith and Prayer, Predict Marital Fidelity" by Atkins and Kessel. The critique examines the strengths and weaknesses of the literature review, including the clarity of definitions, the inclusion of diverse perspectives, and the handling of related concepts like marriage and external influences on infidelity. The report highlights areas where the review could be strengthened, such as incorporating broader definitions of key terms, exploring the views of various scholars on religious and social influences on marital fidelity and infidelity, and more clearly addressing the connection between religion and marriage. The report concludes by emphasizing the overall strengths of the literature review while suggesting improvements for future research. The report also discusses how the authors could have expanded on their points with the use of other scholars and more details.

Running head: CRITIQUING LITERATURE EREVIEW OF “RELIGIOUSNESS AND
INFIDELITY”
Critiquing Literature Review of “Religiousness and Infidelity”
Name of the Student:
Name of the University:
Author Note:

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CRITIQUING LITERATURE REVIEW OF “RELIGIOUSNESS AND INFIDELITY”
Introduction:
The authors David C. Atkins ad Deborah E. Kessel, in their article, “Religiousness and
infidelity: Attendance, but not Faith and Prayer, predict Marital Fidelity”, very clearly analyses
the relationship between religiousness and infidelity. For this research, they perform a literature
review. The following essay aims to examine the literature review of the article in detail and
critique it, with sufficient understanding of how to write a literature review.
Discussion:
The article “ Religiousness and Infidelity” deals with the fact that infidelity I something
that most of the religions do not support. It also talks about the statistics of the infidelity cases in
the American context. The best part of the literature review is that it deals with the outcomes of
infidelity in a very broad sense and provides the arguments of several authors in this context.
Infidelity is something that affects every marriages and the literature review deals with the
health, mental as well as the social issues that are caused due to the infidelity. The authors C.
Atkins and Deborah E. Kessel have used the literature review in their collection of data and their
further data analysis. They have taken the views of the critics in concern and made used of the
same to expand theory research domain and finding out the association of attendance with
religiousness and infidelity. Sauerheber & Ponton (2017) also states that they have found out that
religiousness is greatly associated with the attendance of the people involved and the society,
rather than faith and prayer. They have collected the data through interviewing the public and the
interview had been based upon their proposed hypothesis which had been marital happiness
(Atkins & Kessel, 2008).

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CRITIQUING LITERATURE REVIEW OF “RELIGIOUSNESS AND INFIDELITY”
The first thing to note here is that the authors could have introduced the readers to the
definitions of the terms. This is the very basic of a literature review. In order to let the readers
know about the arguments of the various authors, they need to know the primary definition of
religiousness and infidelity. According to Norona et.al., (2016), only after knowing the
individual definitions can they understand the topic and find out the connection between the both
of them. Also in this context, the other thing that could have been addressed is why the religions
do not support infidelity, and what does the critics say about this. There could have been
instances of few of the religious and their concerns regarding this unfaithful behavior so that it
could have supported the findings of the article (Weed & Henandez, 2018). In accordance to this,
there could have been another aspect which could have been dealt by the authors in this respect.
They could have taken the views of the previous scholars who had talked about the external
influences over infidelity apart from religiousness. There have been arguments of various authors
who say that race, socio economic conditions and also the gender were few of the reasons which
influenced infidelity (Brooks, 2014).
As per the discussion of Stewart (2017), when the connection between infidelity and
religiosity has been talked about, the literature review of the article could have primarily talked
about the connection between religion and marriage. Religion influences marriage to a great
extent and has very important roles in forming a marriage. This later leads to infidelity which has
its way in to the divorce or marital happiness (Kalilombe, 2015). It is very important to note that
in order to determine the effects of religious attendance on the marital fidelity, there should be
ample discussions of other critics and scholars who have talked of the differences between the
religious influences upon the family maintenance and the religious influence on the formation of

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CRITIQUING LITERATURE REVIEW OF “RELIGIOUSNESS AND INFIDELITY”
the family. Both are two different aspects and there could have been a discussion on the
formation and maintaining of a family or a marital status (Weed & Henandez, 2018).
However, according to Rasmussen & Kohut (2019), there had been a proper discussions
regarding the negative association of religiousness with infidelity. This has been talked about
properly which is the strong point of the literature review of the article. In order to establish a
claim it is important to consider what the other scholars have said about the same, from other
angles. The authors David C. Atkins ad Deborah E. Kessel have talked about the framework that
had been proposed by a scholar, which deals with the topic of infidelity from various angles. It is
here that the concept of religiousness applies, in the spheres of individual, contextual and also
the relational (Ebben, 2014). The hypothesis had been based on this point and the authors agree
to the fact that there had been no direct research upon which they could have formulated their
hypothesis. It has been said that the marital formation which have been created by the influence
of religiousness, have associated themselves with lesser risks of infidelity, because the people
have a strong commitment towards their beliefs and religious faith. Also as per the discussion of
Rasmussen & Kohut (2019), this aspect could have been more clearly dealt because the
hypothesis that the authors propose indirectly contradict this statement. Thus there could be more
explanation of the above fact with proper mention of the scholars, and this could have added
gravity to the literature review of the article (Weed & Henandez, 2018).
Conclusion:
Thus from the above discussion it can be concluded that even though there have been
proper utilization of the literature review by the authors in claiming their result and hypothesis,
there have been areas which could have been dealt and could have been done in another manner.

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CRITIQUING LITERATURE REVIEW OF “RELIGIOUSNESS AND INFIDELITY”
The religiousness has a strong connection with infidelity and there should have been a more
vivid discussion regarding the topics individually. Writing a literature review involves making
the thesis statement strong which had been definite in the article, but there have been other
aspects which the scholars have discussed. Addition of those points could make the article
stronger.

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CRITIQUING LITERATURE REVIEW OF “RELIGIOUSNESS AND INFIDELITY”
Reference List:
Atkins, D. C., & Kessel, D. E. (2008). Religiousness and infidelity: Attendance, but not faith and
prayer, predict marital fidelity. Journal of Marriage and Family, 70(2), 407-418.
Brooks, D. G. (2014). Religiousness and marital quality: a test of the relational spirituality
framework (Doctoral dissertation, [University of Missouri--Columbia]).
Ebben, L. (2014). The experience of unforgiveness of extramarital infidelity within a Christian
context (Doctoral dissertation, University of Johannesburg).
Kalilombe, A. M. A. (2015). " Marital sexual infidelity as a risk factor for HIV infection: the
role of the Anglican Church in Malawi in modelling mutual relationships in Christian
marriages" (Doctoral dissertation).
Norona, J. C., Pollock, B. E., Welsh, D. P., & Bolden, J. (2016). Religiosity and Intimacy with
an Extradyadic Partner in Emerging Adulthood: A Developmental Perspective. Journal
of Adult Development, 23(1), 45-50.
Rasmussen, K. R., & Kohut, T. (2019). Does religious attendance moderate the connection
between pornography consumption and attitudes toward women?. The Journal of Sex
Research, 56(1), 38-49.
Sauerheber, J. D., & Ponton, R. F. (2017). Healing from Infidelity: The Role of Covenantal
Forgiveness. Journal of Psychology & Christianity, 36(1).
Stewart, C. M. (2017). Attitudes, attachment styles, and gender: Implications on perceptions of
infidelity.

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CRITIQUING LITERATURE REVIEW OF “RELIGIOUSNESS AND INFIDELITY”
Weed, J., & Hernandez, B. C. (2018). A Light in the Closet: Spiritually Informed Conceptual
Model for Religiously Derived Mixed-Orientation Marriages. In Socially Just Religious
and Spiritual Interventions (pp. 63-73). Springer, Cham.