The concept of 'spirituality' is used in these studies specifically to get away from the idea that religion is the be-all and end-all in terms of personal fulfilment, happiness, and health. Surprisingly, however, the two are then often bundled together as a conglomerate. When describing their research, you often hear something like: "Religion/spirituality is helpful in..."
Take, for example, a recent study into the outcome of drug treatment. The authors, Brad Conner and colleagues from UCLA, looked into whether religious and/or spiritual patients responded better to a treatment programme using drug substitutes (e.g. methadone).
They found that patients who scored high on the spirituality index were better able to cut back on their opiate use. However, there was no relationship to scores on the religious scale.
But in an accompanying review, Are religiosity and spirituality useful constructs in drug treatment research?, they don't differentiate between the two when it comes to looking at their effects on outcomes. Spirituality and religion are assumed to be closely related.
So just what is spirituality? Conner et al put it like this:
Religiosity, as typically defined, encompasses a belief in god, various dimensions of
involvement in organized religion, such as denominational affiliation (e.g., Protestant, Roman Catholic, or Jewish), frequency of attendance at services, acceptance of doctrinal beliefs and norms, and social interaction with fellow congregants. Spirituality emphasizes an inner quality that “facilitates connectedness with the self, other people, and nature.”22(p. 557) While R/S are frequently linked concepts, many people view themselves as spiritual rather than religious,4,19 and the distinction between involvement in organized religion and a person’s “inner quality” requires operationalizing instrument definitions clearly.
So far so good, but here's the crunch:
There is also some disagreement regarding whether belief in a supreme being or sacred realm is an essential element of spirituality. Without such belief, spirituality may be difficult to distinguish from purely humanist beliefs and personal characteristics such as self-efficacy and optimism.
I've emphasized the last sentence, because it highlights the problem. Many of the scales used to measure 'spirituality' actually encompass ideas that a lot of atheists would be very comfortable with.
For example, here's a list of the items on the Spirituality Index of Well-Being Scale:
1. There is not much I can do to help myself.Based on my own responses to those questions, I would be marked as highly spiritual!
2. Often, there is no way I can complete what I have started
3. I can’t begin to understand my problems.
4. I am overwhelmed when I have personal difficulties and problems.
5. I don’t know how to begin to solve my problems.
6. There is not much I can do to make a difference in my life.
7. I haven’t yet found my life’s purpose.
8. I don’t know who I am, where I came from or where I am going.
9. I have a lack of purpose in my life.
10. In this world, I don’t know where I fit in.
11. I am far from understanding the meaning of life.
12. There is a great void in my life at this time.
The Spiritual Well Being Questionnaire has four components: personal (meaning and value in one’s own life); communal (quality and depth of inter-personal relationships); environmental (sense of awe for nature); and transcendental (faith in and relationship with someone or something beyond the human level). Only the 'transcendental' component would reliably distinguish atheists from those who believe in spirits, per se. And, as I've reported before, atheists most definitely do have a sense of awe for nature.
The Daily Spiritual Experience Scale, which is probably the most widely used in health research, tries very hard to focus on more religious ideas (like, "I feel God’s presence"). But even so, it's deliberately constructed so as to include atheists. In describing the rationale for the scale, the authors (Underwood et al 2006) state for one of the items:
Item: Peace. 6. I feel deep inner peace or harmony. This item was one of those that has increased the appeal of this scale for atheist and Buddhist researchers and those with target populations in these or similar categories. And yet it also can elicit experiences for theistic subjects.
It also includes other items like I accept others even when they do things I think are wrong, and I feel a selfless caring for others.
So the reality is that many atheists are spiritual, at least as defined by these scales. Many aspects of spirituality don't require you to believe in magical forces
So, be aware of just how fuzzy is the psychological concept of 'spirituality'. Even if you are an atheist, when researchers are talking about the effects of spirituality, they may well be talking about you!
_______________________________________________________________________________________
Conner, B., Anglin, M., Annon, J., & Longshore, D. (2008). Effect of Religiosity and Spirituality on Drug Treatment Outcomes The Journal of Behavioral Health Services & Research, 36 (2), 189-198 DOI: 10.1007/s11414-008-9145-z
Longshore, D., Anglin, M., & Conner, B. (2008). Are Religiosity and Spirituality Useful Constructs in Drug Treatment Research? The Journal of Behavioral Health Services & Research, 36 (2), 177-188 DOI: 10.1007/s11414-008-9152-0
Daaleman, T. (2004). The Spirituality Index of Well-Being: A New Instrument for Health-Related Quality-of-Life Research The Annals of Family Medicine, 2 (5), 499-503 DOI: 10.1370/afm.89
Underwood, L. (2006). Ordinary Spiritual Experience: Qualitative Research, Interpretive Guidelines, and Population Distribution for the Daily Spiritual Experience Scale Archive for the Psychology of Religion / Archiv für Religionspychologie, 28 (1), 181-218 DOI: 10.1163/008467206777832562
This work by Tom Rees is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 UK: England & Wales License.
How is the 12-point scale of spiritualism to be understood? If you disagree with all, then you are very spiritual? Or if you agree?
ReplyDeleteBjørn, OK the short answer is: neither! They're interested in getting a measure that captures 'spiritual' aspects of psychology, to use it in studying quality of life. They're not interested in grouping people into 'spiritual and 'non-spiritual'. And that's part of the problem. The multitude of spirituality instruments measure different things because the people who created them are interested in different things.
ReplyDeleteHowever, by analogy to other scales, you would expect 'spiritual' people to strongly disagree with each of those items.
Though it makes sense that spiritual people would strongly disagree with the listed items,I feel many spiritual people would report in their testimonies points of time in their life,when their score would have been very low.
ReplyDeleteI see Spirituality in the one's who are "spiritual" is a continuum,but I do see Spiritual and Non-Spiritual as categories.In fact many spiritual people describe their spiritual lives as 'stagnant' and 'growing',showing us that spirituality changes within individuals with time.
The Spiritual Well Being Questionnaire with its four components should be called "well being questionnaire", with domains of personal well being,social well being,environmental and spiritual well being.In other words only the 'transcendental' component should figure as spiritual.
As pointed out,religiosity and spirituality are different. Religion could offer social connectedness with the faith community but spirituality is very personal.Spirituality goes beyond religion,it sure has links with belief in a transcendental being.
I wonder why spirituality has become an enviable word to be associated with for everyone including atheists.Atheists who have good sense of connectedness with nature, community and their own self do have 'well being'.One need not call these things 'spiritual'.
Of course,there needs to be consensus on definitions like 'spiritual' and there need to be newer words to describe certain newer categories.
Hi Dheeraj, most atheists would not describe themselves as spiritual (that's what Luke Galen found in his study). Which is why it is surprising, to me at least, that some measures of spirituality encompass ideas that aren't in the least transcendental. But you're definitions fit well with what I think.
ReplyDeleteAnecdotally, it seems to me that the term "spiritual" is primarily embraced by religious people who want to deny that they're religious, due to the term "religious" having acquired some well-deserved negative connotations. Any ascribed meaning of the term beyond that, to me, is dubious.
ReplyDeleteIt's not unlike when an atheist prefers to call himself an agnostic because he thinks it sounds less confrontational.
this is all way too intellectual, and that is not a compliment ..
ReplyDeleteyou have to understand the relationship between consciousness and mind in order to understand why there are concepts such as "spirituality" and even "religion" ..
"...you have to understand the relationship between consciousness and mind..."
ReplyDeleteAnd that relationship is what?
Though they are difficult to pull apart, I agree with Charles Tart's way of distinguishing the two from his new book The End of Materialism: "...spirituality is primarily about life-changing, primary experiences that happen to individuals, experiences like Bucke's Cosmic Consciousness, while religion is primarily about the social organizations and beliefs that develop and become relatively fixed and institutionalized" (7). Bucke's mystical experience engendered a deep cognitive and affective conviction that the universe is not dead matter but a living presence; that we have immortal souls; that the (despite appearances to the contrary) the universe is designed for the good of each and all; that the happiness of every one is guaranteed in the long run; etc. Thus he would score very high, I presume, on on the Well-Being index. Religious people can also be very spiritual, but they need not be according to Tart. Atheists on the other hand cannot be, insofar as they haven't had the kind of transcendental experiences that he regards as a necessary condition for being spiritual. They may share many of the psychological characteristics one would expect of someone who has had such experiences, but that doesn't make them spiritual as the scale seems to imply.
ReplyDelete