Filled with purpose : the effects of deviant religious experiences on sense of purpose.

The discourse on religious compensators argues that people will pursue different religious experiences and activities based on the social class in which they belong because the rewards of religion are contingent upon one’s social and economic class (Stark & Bainbridge, 1987). To further examine religion and one’s feelings of purpose, I develop and test the hypothesis that the impact of a supernatural encounter with God will be much stronger for those who belong to the marginalized class of individuals who did not complete a high school education. Based on previous literature, the expectation of this study is that individuals without a high school degree will be more likely to seek out deviant religious experiences and will be significantly impacted by deviant experiences because the marginalized struggle to find a sense of purpose in other areas of their lives.