Religious people develop a dependency on religious practices for social approval.

The few research studies aforementioned seem to suggest that religious people develop a dependency on religious practices for social approval. Since religious people seem to be describable in terms of relatively high levels of dependence, it seems useful to borrow a concept suggested by Peele and Brodsky (1975)- that of "addiction." According to these writers addiction is "a person's attachment to a sensation, an object, or another person... such as to lessen his appreciation of and ability to deal with other things in his environment, or in himself, so that he has become increasingly dependent on that experience as his only source of gratification" (p. 168).

There are a variety of definitions for the concept of religious addiction. Arterburn and Felton (1992) state that "when a person is excessively devoted to something or surrenders compulsively and habitually to something, that pathological and physiological dependency on a substance, relationship, or behavior results in addiction" (p. 104). They indicate that, "like any other addiction, the practice of religion becomes central to every other aspect of life...all relationships evolve from the religion, and the dependency on the religious practice and its members removes the need for a dependency on God...the religion and those who practice it then become the central power for the addict who no longer is in touch with God" (p. 117).