Buddthe Relationship Among Motive For Believing Buddhism, Buddhist Cognition, And Buddhist Behavior:Comparison Between China And Vietnam

Religious belief is a common phenomenon feat is found everywhere. During the transitional period of society in both China and Vietnam, there are a lot of people choose to believe Buddhism. It’s therefore of great interest to explore why they choose to believe Buddhism and what is the implicit factors affecting their Buddhist behavior. In the present study, using psychological research method and combining personal Buddhist work experience, we compared the motivation, cognition, and behavior of Buddhists between the two countries to investigate the motivation of Buddhists and its influence on cognition and behavior for Buddhism. There are six chapters in the current study.Chapter 1 In this chapter, a review about concept of motivation (definition from psychology and Buddhism), the category of motivation, and its relation with relevant theories was presented firstly. Then the aim and expectation of the present research were illustrated. Finally there was a review about relevant Buddhist theories, in which studies in Chinese Mainland, Taiwan, and Hong Kong were all included.Chapter 2 First of all, the theoretical assumption for Buddhist motivation and its influence on cognition and behavior for Chinese and Vietnamese Buddhist were described. Then the operational definition of Buddhism belief was discussed.There are three studies in Chapter 3. The scale of Buddhist motivation was constructed in study 1. 570 Vietnamese Buddhists and 604 Chinese Buddhists participated in this study. The formal scale is consists of 30 items, including three dimensions, that is external-religious motivation, internal-religious motivation, and non-religious motivation. Results from Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) indicated that there was a high validity for the scale of Buddhist motivation. The scale of Buddhist cognition was constructed in study 2. Total of 1389 Chinese and Vietnamese Buddhist took part in this study, and the data from 1119 of them were computed in the final analysis. The final scale contains three dimensions, specifically, the cognition for Buddha, the cognition for Buddhism talisman, and the cognition for Sangha. Finally, the scale of Buddhist behavior was made, which includes personally experience behavior, behavior about Dharma protector dharmapala, and behavior about social contribution.Chapter 4 Based on the results of chapter 3, die differences on Religious features of Buddhism between Chinese Buddhist and Vietnamese Buddhist were examined. The t-test was used to determine whether individual variables, i.e. sex, age, major or belief, influence faith motivation, faith approach， recognition and behavior of Buddhism.Chapter 5 An interview was conducted in this chapter. This interview concerned mostly on the motivation and approaches that the believers contact Buddhism, whether Buddhism improved their quality of lives and how they confirmed their beliefs. We expected that the willingness of choice, the degree of understanding and the practice of two groups of people may correlate with their demographic variables. The relation among the motivation of believing Buddhism, recognition and behavior were analyzed in the second section. The correlations between each dimensions of scale were examined. The results were discussed and the final conclusions were proposed.Chapter 6 The research results got summarized:the correlations indicated that the motivation can predict behavior which means that motivation can predict the understanding of doctrines. The results of three scales implied the existence of differences. There were two major findings:the innovation of research topic and the application of research conclusions. First, anew point of view was proposed to reveal the nature of religious phenomenon. The motivation behind the religious behavior got explained and the understanding was predicted. All of these were innovational. There are many factors that affect the behaviors of believers as the way the information get spread, the medias and certain social environments. We examined whether people believe in Buddhism for utilitarian purposes. We describe how believers think of their death and their concerns and fear toward death. This chapter summarized the major conclusions and results of this research. We demonstrate the motivations and influencing factors that affect the contractions of Buddhism. All the innovations and valuable conclusions of this research were demonstrated. Finally, the prospect of applying all these conclusions is introduced.