Year: 2010

Q: I’m about to begin an honors thesis in psychology and am interested in using an LDS sample. I’m not abreast of the literature, and was wondering if there were some interesting findings in the research examining latter-day saints? Perhaps you could point me to a good review? Alternatively and probably more useful, have you as an expert researcher identified any anomalies or gaps in LDS research? Another way of looking at this may be – if you yourself could have a psychological study done examining some aspect of Mormons, what would you be most interested in examining? Any suggestions no matter how vague or fantastic would be really appreciated. Lastly, I have leanings myself towards studying recently returned missionaries on some aspect of adjustment/subsyndromal PTSD. Potentially with a view to proposing a sort of “RM-MTC” for vulnerable rm’s.
I’m wondering how feasible this research proposal sounds, or if anything like this has been done with missionaries in the past, and whether the church needs to approve a study such as this…

A: Here are the answers from the MSSA…

Michael Nielsen offered the following:

There is very little psychological work examining post-mission life, or even mission life, for that matter. I recall a few articles dealing with this topic in general.  I’d encourage you to consider framing it as post-mission adjustment, or something similar, rather than PTSD, as PTSD will likely be perceived by some who could benefit from the research as denigrating the mission experience, or as suggesting a prejudice against missions even if it is not intended. This can adversely affect your ability to get a good sample, as well as the potential to publish the results later.  If your library has access to the PsycInfo database, you may be able to locate helpful studies by combining “religio*” and “adjustment”, and narrowing down the resulting list. Don’t include LDS or Mormon unless you really need to focus on specifically Mormon elements.  You might also try the Sommervogel Archive (http://www.division36.org/sommervogel.html), which is an index of religion research that has little overlap with the PsychInfo database.  (For instance, searching Mormon in Sommerogel yields results from religion journals, sunstone, and other things not indexed in PsycInfo.)  By maintaining a sufficiently broad conceptual base, not limiting your research to Mormonism specifically, you should be able to find a good body of literature to build on.

Armand Mauss offered the following:

Here are some suggestions, whether or not you are able to do a survey for your honors thesis:
1) Get a copy of the large bibliography, Studies in Mormon History, 1830-1997, compiled by Allen, Walker, and Whittaker (U. of Illinois Press, 2000), and go to the final section, “A Topical Guide to Published Social Science Literature,” where you will find an overview of what sociological and psychological studies have been done (up to about a decade ago). Some of these works were based on surveys but most were not. Nevertheless, you  can see what sorts of topics have already been addressed. Some studies of missionaries are included.

2) Get a copy of Heaton, Bahr, and Jacobson, A Statistical Profile of Mormons: Health, Wealth, and Social Life (Edwin Mellen Press, 2004). From this book you can see what survey data sets are in the public domain and potentially available for secondary analysis. Most of them require the researcher to cull out Mormon subsamples from the larger data sets. Heaton et al. can probably tell him how to do this, and how to get access to the data sets. They might already be on file at BYU.

3) Go to the ARDA website and see what kinds of data are available on Mormons in that archive. My own 40-year-old surveys are on file there, which could at least give him examples of the kinds of questions that have been successfully used in studying Mormon populations.  Other ARDA data sets contain LDS data aggregated at the congregational or county level, etc. See this and this.

4) Finally, it might be in your interest to contact the Research Information Division (RID) in Salt Lake City to see if they have any leads for him. Their own data would be proprietary, but they might be able to point him to studies they know of that would be available to him. I know, for example, that RID participated in the recent Congregational Surveys done by the Hartford Seminary (which I think are included in the ARDA archive), so even RID data collected for those surveys might be available. (If you want contact information for some of the RID researchers, let me know.)

Andrew Miles offered the following:

Glad to hear you are interested in studying Mormons!  In my experience, there aren’t that many social scientific studies specifically about Mormons, though that has been changing in recent years.  The problem is that most big data sets have very few Latter-day Saints in them, and so researchers on religion usually can’t look at patterns for LDS apart from other religious groups.  That means that whatever you do, you’ll probably have to collect your own data.

In terms of gaps in the literature . . . Well, most research that I’m familiar with on Mormons is historical or cultural.  That means that most psychological or social psychological questions that might be unique to Mormons probably have not been explored.  I think you could expand your RM study to include other stressors as well.  For instance, being single in a family-oriented church might be seen as a type of chronic stressor, and being called into a demanding church position such as bishop or stake president might similarly provoke stress.  These could lead to psychological distress, but might also be counterbalanced by support and coping resources that exist in the LDS church as well.  If you wanted to take a comparative approach, you could look at mental health among LDS and another religious (or non-religious) group.

Q: I was wondering if you might be able to send me some information on where I can find empirical studies and data, so that I may further my research.  I want to focus on African American women challenges  of being Mormon, and how traditional (black) practices and customs differ from that of Mormon culture.  I was wondering if you might be able to send me some information on where I can find empirical studies and data, so that I may further my research. I want to focus on African American women challenges  of being Mormon, and how traditional (black) practices and customs differ from that of Mormon culture.

A: Two members of the MSSA responded to this question.

Armand Mauss suggested the following:

I would refer Teameaka to the websites www.blacklds.org and www.ldsgenesisgroup.org to start with, so that she can explore what resources and contacts she might encounter there. Then for knowledgeable individual people, she should contact the following:

• Lillian Glover (lglover318@yahoo.com), who is coordinator for African American Affairs in southern California
• Marvin Perkins (perkinsmc@sbcglobal.net), who has his own Outreach Program for LDS African Americans
• Margaret Young (margaret_young@byu.edu), who (with Darius Gray) is author of a trilogy that explores the history of LDS African Americans, including a number of women, such as Jane Manning James.

Other resources :

1. The hour-long PBS documentary “Nobody Knows” deals with the history of African American Mormons, based on the research of Margaret and Darius. Margaret can tell Teameaka how to get access to that documentary.
2. The BYU Redd Center for Western Studies has a collection of more than 200 “oral histories” transcribed during the 1980s from interviews with black LDS members, men and women.
3. Professor Stephen C. Finley (scfinley@lsu.edu ), a young professor of Religious Studies at Louisiana State University is just starting a book project on black Latter-day Saints and how they articulate their ethnic and religious identities. He has been collecting data from various sources, including the libraries in Utah, and is very knowledgeable about them. I think he would be very helpful, and there might be opportunities for collaboration there (he is black but not LDS).

Anyway, all that would be a good start. I don’t know of any special sources about LDS African American women, but these sources I have mentioned would include material on women, as well as on men.

Richard Stamps also made a recommendation:

I suggest you check out Jerri A. Harwell’s book “Leaning on Prayer” 2004, from Spring Creek Book Company, Provo, Utah. You may wish to contact her (jharwell@mymail.slcc.edu). I think she is teaching at Salt Lake Community College. She is also well connected with the Genesis Group for Black members. A very nice lady.

Q: Much has been written about Mormons’ attitudes toward African Americans, but I’m wondering what the LDS Church’s relationship with Native Americans and Central/South Americans has been. These people are generally considered to be Book of Mormon peoples–does that belief affect members’ perceptions of them and indigenous American Mormons’ perception of themselves? I find this to be an important question, as these peoples are becoming a greater share of the LDS membership.

A: Below are the responses from various members of the MSSA.  I think you’ll find them very helpful:

Armand Mauss rightly noted that he has, quite literally, written THE book on this:

In all immodesty, I would say that anyone interested in this topic would do well to start with Chapters 3, 4, and 5 of my All Abraham’s Children: Changing Mormon Conceptions of Race and Lineage (U. of Illinois Press, 2003). From there, one could check out the citations in those chapters to the various relevant articles in the bibliography of the book. These chapters are all about changing LDS perceptions and policies toward Lamanites, both in North America and in Latin America. Beyond that, there are books from both FARMS and Signature (on opposite sides ideologically) that get into this issue, and even some Dialogue articles.

Jan Shipps recommended that you speak with Quincy Newell in Religious Studies at the University of Wyoming, who responded as well and said that the best place to start would be with Armand Mauss’s book – so three experts believe All Abraham’s Children is the best place for you to start your investigations.

Another expert on this question, David Knowlton, offered the following suggestions:

On the native American issue I recommend Thomas Murphy’s dissertation at the University of Washington, anthropology. Jordan Haug presented on this topic at the SSSR in Louisville. He Has excellent material on this topic. On Latin America, Josue Sanchez has an excellent critical essay on the trope of Lamanites among Latin American Mormons. He is reachable through the ASPMS list. Eduardo Pagan has similarly written on the issue I believe. Orlando Rivera is another good source.

Now on what I see–btw I am in Bolivia at the moment immersed in this reality.  The idea that Bolivians are BofM peoples has a strong impact among members of the Church here, who take the notion literally. A local leader (archeologist) has written a popular book among Mormons building a relationship between the Bof M narrative and Bolivia’s archeology. His name is Hans Ralf Caspary. Just day before yesterday I was talking with a local leader about Cusco and he said that the water basins near Cusco were baptismal fonts, i.e. people locate their ideology in local archeological features. I find the politics and class basis of this kind of thinking intriguing at a time when the country has just implemented a new constitution which celebrates its indigenous past and contemporary reality. For me, much of the point of the BofM “indigenous” reality is that it gives people a claim on indigenous history and reality, while not having to carry any of the specific history or details of organic indian identities and ideologies.

The questioner, however, should contact Mexican Mormon scholars and ask them the question. I can provide addresses and names should they be interested.

Jessie Embry described some current research on this:

I am working on a manuscript I call Mormons and Navajos but I have a chapter on the Church’s relationship with Native Americans in general and a little on Central and South America. There is a belief among some scholars–myself included–that in many ways George P. Lee was right. The Church shifted its focus from the Native Americans as more people from Central and South America joined the Church and far extended the number of Native Americans joining the Church. A limited example is the shift from the Lamanite Generation at BYU which was Native American to start with to the Living Legends which includes not only Native Americans and Central and South America but also the South Pacific. That is just one example.

The oral histories that the Redd Center at BYU has done with Native Americans do see the belief that they are the Lamanites affects their perceptions of themselves. While we have interviewed Latino/a Americans, the Center (basically me) has not looked at views of Lamanites. Oops.

Scott Bosworth offered the following suggestions:

Here are some bibliographic entries on the Indian student placement program:

• Allen, James B. “The Rise and Decline of the LDS Indian Student Placement Program, 1947-1996,” Mormons, Scripture, and the Ancient World: Studies in Honor of John L. Sorenson, ed. Davis Bitton (Provo: FARMS, 1998), 85-119.
• Chadwick, Bruce A. Stan L. Albrecht and Howard M. Bahr, “Evaluation of an Indian Student Placement Program,” Social Casework 67/9 (1986): 515-24.
• Chadwick, Bruce A. and Stan L. Albrecht, “Mormons and Indians: Beliefs, Policies, Programs and Practices,” in Contemporary Mormonism: Social Science Perspectives, ed. Tim B. Heaton and Lawrence A. Young (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1994), 287-309.
• Hangen, Tona. “A Place to Call Home: Studying the Indian Placement Program,” Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 30/1 (Spring 1997): 53-69.
• Morgan, Brandon. “Educating the Lamanites: A Brief History of the LDS Indian Student Placement Program.” Journal of Mormon History. 35/5 (Fall 2009):191-217.

Benjamin Pykles offered some references as well:

A quick look through a bibliography I put together many years ago came up with the following items that may or may not be relevant to the question. These are approaching the question of Mormon-Native American relationships primarily from a historical perspective, not a contemporary one, but I thought I would share them nonetheless.

• James, Rhett S. “150 Years of Mormon-Indian Relations,” Sidney B. Sperry Symposium 1980: 162-192.
• Stucki, Larry R.  “Mormonism: the restorer or destroyer of the ‘true’ heritage of the American Indian?,” (paper presented at the 78th annual meeting of the American Anthropological Association, 30 November 1979, Cincinnati, Ohio).
• Whittaker, David J.  “Mormons and Native Americans: A Historical and Bibliographical Introduction,” Dialogue 1985 18(4): 33-64.

Gayle Lasater had another book recommendation:

While I am not an expert, the following book may be of some help if Mr. Adams has not already encountered it:

• Farmer, Jared (2008). On Zion’s Mount: Mormons, Indians, and the American Landscape. Harvard University Press.

Melvyn Hammarberg offered this recommendation:

One of my students did an article in the distant past: Beverly P. Smaby, “The Mormons and the Indians: Conflicting Ecological Systems in the Great Basin,” American Studies 16 (Spring 1975), 35-48, which might be one place to start.