Accessing visitor evaluation of an immersive cathedral experience: applying the Jungian lenses of feeling and thinking and Bailey’s theory of implicit religion

McKenna, U. and Francis, L.J. (2025) Accessing visitor evaluation of an immersive cathedral experience: applying the Jungian lenses of feeling and thinking and Bailey’s theory of implicit religion. Journal of Beliefs and Values. ISSN 1361-7672

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Abstract

The SIFT hermeneutical approach, rooted in Jungian psychological type theory, distinguishes between two core cognitive processes: perceiving concerned with gathering information and judging concerned with evaluating information. The present study applies this approach to eliciting and interpreting visitor evaluation of an immersive cathedral installation (a pre-Christmas son et lumiere) by focusing on the evaluative lenses of feeling and thinking. Drawing on data from 545 visitors, analysis of qualitative responses to the feeling prompt, ‘What touched your heart during the installation or connected with your values?’ identified ten main themes. Analysis of qualitative responses to the thinking prompt, ‘What big questions were raised in your mind during the installation or connected with your interests?’ identified seven main themes. These two prompts generated quite different responses, suggesting a complementary and richer evaluation of the total experience could be accessed by engaging both the feeling function and the thinking function.

Item Type:	Article
Additional Information:	Published by Taylor & Francis in 2025. This is an author accepted manuscript of a published open access article available at https://doi.org/10.1080/13617672.2025.2529334. Uploaded in accordance with the publisher's self-archiving policy.
Keywords:	Cathedral studies psychological type son et lumiere visitor studies
Depositing User:	Ursula Mckenna
Date Deposited:	18 Aug 2025 10:12
Last Modified:	18 Aug 2025 10:12
URI:	https://bgro.repository.guildhe.ac.uk/id/eprint/1253

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