Matters of faith and psychology are both part of people’s everyday, and often seen at odds with one another. Given that psychology at its root literally means “the study of the soul” this is unsurprising, but to any researcher at the intersection of these two fields, there is an understanding that they have much in common. From a Christian practitioner’s perspective, this makes perfect sense. Research shows that active faith is related to multiple positive long term physical and mental health benefits. Conversely, active faith is inversely related to many delinquent behaviors.
Unfortunately, there is significant overlap in several of the research terms used to try to better understand this area. Searches for religiousness, spirituality, and faith in any database yields thousands of results. Regrettably, many of these articles use one or more of these terms without defining them, and when they do define them, definitions historically lack consistency.
This problem is exactly what Kevin Harris, Desiree Howell, and Don Spurgeon address in their article Faith Concepts in Psychology: Three 30-Year Definitional Content Analyses. They recognized that too much overlap exists between the terms without sufficient operationalization (clear definitions for research purposes). As the authors completed an initial review of existing literature, they found that they needed to add a fourth term to their study: The Sacred. Ironically, this realization occurred due to the overlap between the definitions for spirituality and religiousness.
Method and Concepts
They carried out this study by analyzing and comparing the definitions given for spirituality, religiousness, faith, and the sacred across thousands of peer-reviewed journal articles on these topics over the past 100+ years. Here is what they found.
Spirituality
The authors discovered 8 dimensions (which the authors call “prototype phenomena”) of spirituality that regularly appeared in definitions given for research: internal emphasis, belief system, relationship, ultimate concern, meaningfulness, self-enhancement, self-transcendence, and monism (a “oneness” to all things).
Religiousness
Six prototype phenomena were unearthed across the definitions of religiousness analyzed: spirituality, intrinsic nature, extrinsic nature, ritual behavior, institutionalization, and codification.
Faith
Across 122 articles investigated, 22 distinct categories existed including belief system, practices, institution, the Divine, religious, spiritual, meaning, emotions vs. reason, developmental stages, trust, commitment, the unknown, journey, suffering, strength, altruism, transcendence, human experience, and motivation (for life).
The Sacred
Here only 8 concepts were discerned: the divine, spiritual or religious, objects, holy, beliefs or traditions, set of phenomena, ideal, and respect.
Discussion
As a result of their broad investigation of the field and rooted in the prototypical phenomena that continually emerged in the definitions, the authors suggested operational definitions for these terms in an effort to generate consistency in research moving forward. The definitions, all direct quotes from page 14 of the article, are as follows.
Spirituality – a faith concept referring to a search for the sacred involving a relationship with an ultimate concern that is in some way meaningful
Religiousness – a faith concept referring to ritual, institutional, or codified spirituality which is culturally sanctioned
Faith – a faith concept which is synonymous with spirituality and/or religiousness
The Sacred – a faith concept referring to manifestations of the divine, existential meaningfulness, or an ultimate concern as perceived by an individual
Critique
As a researcher in the area of faith development and identity, the notion that there is significant overlap, and sometimes interchangeability between some of the terms above is no surprise. As a result, I was excited to see what these authors would find in their meta-analysis. Regarding their definitions for spirituality and religiousness, I like what I see. The notion that spirituality is a connected to a state of being and more concerned with the search for the sacred, yet largely relational makes perfect sense. Likewise, the idea that religiousness is more behavior oriented in regard to a specific religious system with it’s own rituals and terms seems on point.
My problem is with their definition of faith. While spirituality is connected to search and relationship with self and others in regard to the sacred, and religiousness refers to the rituals and vocabulary utilized within the belief system of the individual, to refer to faith as merely an operational synonym to one or both of these terms is a gross oversimplification. Perhaps the struggle to quantify faith as a construct in this way is due to the notion that faith serves as a core component of identity.
Spirituality is a relational and somewhat fluctuating state-of-being. An individual feels at one with the universe and its Creator and self and everyone and everything in it or not to a fluctuating extent. Religiousness is measured by participation (or not) in religious activities, which in turn facilitates behaviors. Faith, as a component of one’s identity, looks at BOTH the relational aspects regarding how one relates to God, self, and others within one’s specific religious context as indicated by behaviors, but it is driven from and by that individual’s commitment to and exploration of faith. Thus, while faith inevitably contains elements of both spirituality and religiousness, it is certainly not merely synonymous with either or both of those constructs.
Source: Harris, K. A., Howell, D. S., & Spurgeon, D. W. (2018). Faith Concepts in Psychology: Three 30-Year Definitional Content Analyses. Psychology of Religion and Spirituality, 10(1), 1-29.
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