Bella DePaulo is a visiting professor of psychology at the University of California in Santa Barbara. She is an expert on lying.

Marleen Williams is a clinical professor of counseling psychology at Brigham Young University, a Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints school in Provo, Utah. She specializes in women’s mental health and focuses her research on eating disorders, depression, trauma and spirituality in women. She says religious beliefs that see the body as a God-given gift […]

John R. Ballew is a licensed professional counselor and writer at the website bodymindsoul.org, which focuses on spirituality and mental health for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered people. He lives in Atlanta. He says that too often religion makes it difficult for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered people to accept themselves — a situation that can […]

Kenneth Ferraro is a professor of sociology and psychological sciences at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Ind. In 1998, he published the findings of a study that showed that religious participation is associated with higher body weight. His study of 3,600 people found that Southern Baptists are heaviest, with Jews, Muslims and Buddhists less likely to […]

Irwin Altman is a distinguished professor of psychology at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City and the co-author of Polygamous Families in Contemporary Society (Cambridge University Press, 1996).

Read a Feb. 19, 2009, article from Psychology Today about the appeal of polygamy from an evolutionary psychology perspective.

“Psychology of Spiritual Movements” provides a psychological analysis of Spiritual Movements’ history, beliefs and ideals by Michael Rogge.

Silvia Sara Canetto is a psychology professor at Colorado State University in Fort Collins. She has written extensively about assisted suicide.

Paul C. Vitz is a professor emeritus of psychology at New York University. He is the author of Faith of the Fatherless: The Psychology of Atheism.