Complex Processes of Religion and Spirituality Among Midwestern LGBTQ Homeless Young Adults

The role of religion and spirituality in young people’s lives is diverse and multifaceted. Little research has examined how religion shapes the experiences of socially marginalized groups, such as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer (LGBTQ) homeless young adults. This study illustrates how Midwestern LGBTQ homeless young people interpret the role of religion and spirituality in their lives. Drawing from a sample of 22 LGBTQ homeless young people between the ages of 19 and 26 years, we qualitatively explore how they distinctively frame religion, spirituality and religious identity through an intersectional lens of their life experiences. Our findings demonstrate the complex ways that young adults from multiple marginalized social groups can interpret religion in the unique context of their social environments. Many young people highlighted the positive impact of religion and spirituality in their lives by constructing them as sources of resilience. Other LGBTQ young adults also discussed how religion was often a source of stigma that interacted with participants’ highly vulnerable social environments and backgrounds. Implications for service providers and policy improvements are discussed.     

Definitions and Evaluation of Religion and Spirituality Items by Religious Professionals: A Pilot Study

In an effort to clarify the concepts of religion and spirituality religious professionals (Imams, Ministers, Priests, and Rabbis) defined the terms religion and spirituality and responded to whether the concepts religion and spirituality were different (i.e. non-overlapping), the same, or overlapping. Additionally, they rated each item from the five measures (purportedly to assess religion or spirituality) for the extent to which the items assess the construct of religion and/or spirituality. Content analysis of definitions revealed religion as objective, external, and ritual or organizational practices that one performs in a group setting and that guide one’s behavior; while spirituality was defined as internal, subjective, and divine experience or direct relationship with God. Primarily the concepts were viewed as overlapping. Analysis for item ratings revealed few within group differences and relatively few between group differences for ratings of item relevance to assess religion and spirituality. Factor analysis of item ratings revealed one factor named religion/spirituality.Corine Hyman, M.S., is a Ph.D. candidate in clinical psychology at Saint Louis University. Her research interests include religion, spirituality, anxiety, and depressive disorders, minority issues, PTSD, and test development.Paul J. Handal received his Ph.D. degree from Saint Louis University in clinical psychology in 1969. His interests have included education and training of clinical psychologists as director of the clinical program at Saint Louis University from 1973 until 1993. Additional interests include research in the area of psychology and religion and its relationship to adjustment and health in adolescence and adults. Correspondence to Dr. Paul J. Handalm, handalpj@slu.edu.     

The effects of a brief time perspective intervention for increasing physical activity among young adults

Past research has demonstrated that health behavior is correlated with time perspective: long-term thinkers are more likely than short-term thinkers to engage in health protective behaviors and less likely to engage in health damaging behaviors. To date, however, no research has experimentally demonstrated that time perspective is causally related to health behavior. We designed a brief (three 1/2-h weekly sessions) time perspective intervention to enhance long-term thinking about physical activity and examined its efficacy among two samples of young adults who signed up for fitness classes at a university recreational facility. Participants were assigned to one of three conditions: time perspective intervention, goal-setting control intervention, and no-treatment control. In Study 1, physical activity levels were assessed at preintervention, at postintervention (3 weeks later), and at 10-week follow-up (7 weeks after completion of the intervention). Controlling for preintervention physical activity levels, time perspective participants reported increased levels of physical activity relative to both other groups at postintervention, and relative to the no-treatment group at 10-week follow-up. This study provides the first experimental evidence that the effects of health behavior interventions may be enhanced by increasing participants’ long-term time perspective, and that time perspective is causally associated with health behavior. Study 2 replicated some of the effects of Study 1 using a larger sample, a six-month follow-up interval, and improved measurement of outcome. Together Studies 1 and 2 suggest that time perspective is an important ingredient in interventions designed to promote physical activity.     

Revisiting Mahoney’s ‘My body is a temple…’ study: spirituality as a mediator of the religion–health interaction among adolescents

This study proposes and tests a new model that seeks to explain associations between religion, spirituality and health outcomes among adolescents. Specifically, we test for mediating effects of perceived spirituality on religion–health relations. Using data from the 4-H Study of Positive Youth Development, we find that perceived spirituality mediates religion–health relations, but that varies based on youths’ conceptualisation of spirituality. With findings confirming that perceived spirituality potentially promote youths’ psychosocial health, we offer some future research directions and implications regarding relations between youths’ spirituality, religion and health behaviours.     

Age and Cultural Gender Equality as Moderators of the Gender Difference in the Importance of Religion and Spirituality: Comparing the United Kingdom,France, and Germany

A range of research studies has found that women report greater importance of religion and spirituality in their lives than men do. This study extends the literature on this phenomenon, and the theories that aim to explain it, by looking at whether gender differences in the three European countries (the United Kingdom, France, and Germany) differ by adult age group (young adults 18–39, midlifers 40–59, and older adults 60+), and by the cultural gender equality of the countries in question. Participants provided data on the importance of religiosity and spirituality to their life. Significant gender differences were found within all three countries, for each of the three age groups. In line with predictions based on Global Gender Gap Report 2016, Germany showed the smallest difference, followed by France and the United Kingdom. Gender differences were smaller in the young adult samples than for midlife adults or older adults.     

How Do “Religion” and “Spirituality” Differ? Lay Definitions Among Older Adults

Research and public interest in religion and spirituality is on the rise. Consequently, there is an increasing need for rigorously obtained information on what individuals mean when they use these terms. This study examined how 64 older adults living in three retirement communities (including one Christian‐based community), a relatively understudied population, conceptualize religion and spirituality. Participants defined “religion” and “spirituality,” and their narrative definitions were coded and compared using a framework derived from Hill et al.'s (2000) conceptualization of religion and spirituality. Despite considerable overlap, participants' definitions differed on several dimensions. Participants were more likely to associate religion than spirituality with personal beliefs, community affiliation, and organized practices. Moreover, spirituality appeared to be a more abstract concept than religion, and included nontheistic notions of a higher power.     

Constructing a Christian Polydoxy

In another article in this issue of Dialog my colleague Stephen Ellingson usefully summarizes social science findings about the character of spirituality and religious belief and practice among young adults in the United States today. Especially characteristic of their emerging consciousness, he notes, is the separation between personal spirituality and organized, official, institutionalized religion, on the one hand, and their "re–grounding of religious authority in experience and practice instead of in belief and doctrine," on the other. Although Ellingson sees both "problems and possibilities" in the new forms of spirituality that he describes, he focuses on "the theological and ecclesiological challenges posed by the new religious context." In this article I will explore their positive possibilities.     

Religion and Well-Being: The Mediating Role of Positive Emotions

Research has consistently shown that endorsing a religion or spirituality is to some extent related to one’s well-being. Common studied explanations tap into the social and cognitive aspects of religion and spirituality. The present research aims at understanding how religiosity and spirituality exert their impact on well-being and investigates the role of a surprisingly neglected mechanism: positive emotions. Two cross-sectional studies using a quantitative approach are presented. In two different contexts (churchgoers in a European country and US university employees interested in meditation), results showed that the relation between religion (Study 1), spirituality (Study 2) and well-being is mediated by positive emotions. Distinguishing between more and less relevant positive emotions in a religious/spiritual context, it was found that the effect was mediated by self-transcendent positive emotions (awe, gratitude, love, and peace) but not by other positive emotions (amusement and pride).     

Make Love and Lose Your Religion and Virtue: Recalling Sexual Experiences Undermines Spiritual Intentions and Moral Behavior

In contrast with traditional considerations, sexuality is often perceived today as being rather compatible with religion/spirituality and morality. However, there may be some inherent opposition between (a) sexuality (thoughts, affects, and pleasure) and (b) religion/spirituality (attitudes, motives) and (interpersonal) morality (dispositions, behavior). The two imply, respectively, self‐enhancement versus self‐transcendence, disinhibition versus self‐control, and disgust indifference versus sensitivity. We hypothesized that sexual experience attenuates spiritual and moral concerns and behaviors. In three online experiments, young adults were asked to recall a personal sexual experience. Compared to a control condition, sexual induction diminished spiritual behavioral intentions (Experiments 1 and 2), in particular among those with high individual disinhibition (Experiment 1), as well as behaviors of prosociality and integrity/honesty (Experiment 3). The effects were independent of individual religiousness/spirituality. These findings suggest that combining sexual pleasure with self‐transcendence and moral perfection, even if a legitimate ideal, is not an easy enterprise.     

The Experience of Religion and Spirituality Among College Students Who Use Illicit Substances

Nine collegiate illicit substance users participated in a phenomenological study of their perceptions of religion, spirituality, and substance use. We identified three themes from the interviews: (a) development of substance-using behaviors, (b) journey with religion and spirituality, and (c) intersectionality of substance use and religious and spiritual journeys. The participants voiced a complex bidirectional relationship among use behaviors, religion, and spirituality that could be facilitative, adverse, or divergent. We provide implications and suggestions for future research.     

Differential Effects of Family Structure on Religion and Spirituality of Emerging Adult Males and Females

This study examined measures of religion and spirituality in a sample of male and female emerging adult college students whose parents were either divorced or intact using the Personal Religious Inventory, the Duke University Religion Index, the Daily Spiritual Experiences Scale, the Spiritual Transcendence Scale, and the Spiritual Involvement and Beliefs Scale. Data were collected online, and 66% of participants received extra credit for participating. A main effect of sex was found, as females reported significantly higher scores than men on all but one measure of religion and spirituality, and the dataset was separated by sex. No differences were found between males from divorced and intact families. However, females from intact families scored significantly higher on all religion and spirituality measures than females from divorced families. This study suggests that females may respond differently than males to their parents’ divorce in the context of religion and spirituality, and discusses possible reasons.     

What I Look Like: College Women, Body Image, and Spirituality

Despite public acknowledgment of the importance of spiritual development, little has been written globally on female young adults’ personal views of their spiritual values and body image. This article briefly presents the findings of a pilot study that explored female college students’ reflections on body image and spirituality. Responses from participants showed that (1) many students are interested in faith and spiritual development; (2) body dissatisfaction affects those women who viewed themselves as spiritual (92%) as well as those who said they were free thinkers (49%). Nevertheless, religion and spiritual values seemed to confer some behavioral protection. Implications for educational programs that will address the spiritual dimension of learning are discussed.     

Developmental Features of Rapid Aiming Arm Movements Across the Lifespan

Using a lifespan approach, the authors investigated developmental features of the control of ballistic aiming arm movements by manipulating movement complexity, response uncertainty, and the use of precues. Four different age groups of participants (6- and 9-year-old boys and girls and 24- and 73-year- old men and women, 20 participants in each age group) performed 7 types of rapid aiming arm movements on the surface of a digitizer. Their movement characteristics such as movement velocity, normalized jerk, relative timing, movement linearity, and intersegment intervals were profiled. Analyses of variance with repeated measures were conducted on age and task effects in varying movement complexity (Study 1), response uncertainty (Study 2), and precue use (Study 3) conditions. Young children and senior adults had slower, more variant, less smooth, and less linear arm movements than older children and young adults. Increasing the number of movement segments resulted in slower and more variant responses. Movement accuracy demands or response uncertainty interacted with age so that the 6- and 74-year-old participants had poorer performances but responded similarly to the varying treatments. Even though older children and young adults had better performances than young children and senior adults, their arm movement performance declined when response uncertainty increased. The analyses suggested that young children's and senior adults' performances are poorer because less of their movement is under central control, and they therefore use on-line adjustments. In addition, older children and young adults use a valid precue more effectively to prepare for subsequent movements than do young children and senior adults, suggesting that older children and young adults are more capable of organizing motor responses than arc young children and senior adults.     

Developmental features of rapid aiming arm movements across the lifespan

Using a lifespan approach, the authors investigated developmental features of the control of ballistic aiming arm movements by manipulating movement complexity, response uncertainty, and the use of precues. Four different age groups of participants (6- and 9-year-old boys and girls and 24- and 73-year-old men and women, 20 participants in each age group) performed 7 types of rapid aiming arm movements on the surface of a digitizer. Their movement characteristics such as movement velocity, normalized jerk, relative timing, movement linearity, and intersegment intervals were profiled. Analyses of variance with repeated measures were conducted on age and task effects in varying movement complexity (Study 1), response uncertainty (Study 2), and precue use (Study 3) conditions. Young children and senior adults had slower, more variant, less smooth, and less linear arm movements than older children and young adults. Increasing the number of movement segments resulted in slower and more variant responses. Movement accuracy demands or response uncertainty interacted with age so that the 6- and 74-year-old participants had poorer performances but responded similarly to the varying treatments. Even though older children and young adults had better performances than young children and senior adults, their arm movement performance declined when response uncertainty increased. The analyses suggested that young children's and senior adults' performances are poorer because less of their movement is under central control, and they therefore use on-line adjustments. In addition, older children and young adults use a valid precue more effectively to prepare for subsequent movements than do young children and senior adults, suggesting that older children and young adults are more capable of organizing motor responses than are young children and senior adults.     

An integrative intervention for cultivating gratitude among adolescents and young adults

ABSTRACT

Emerging evidence indicates that practicing gratitude contributes to well-being. The goal of this investigation was to develop a comprehensive, effective intervention for promoting gratitude among adolescents and young adults (ages 16–30). Findings from experimental data indicate that three existing gratitude activities (three good things, benefit appraisals, and a gratitude letter) fostered unique facets of gratitude (Study 1). A combined intervention enhanced gratitude, hope, and prosocial intentions among young adults (Study 2) and adolescents (Study 3). This work extends the literature by providing empirical evidence on how benefit appraisal influence adults, revealing the unique effects of existing gratitude activities, and showing that an integrative intervention is effective for both adolescents and young adults. Furthermore, the resulting intervention is relatively brief and can be implemented online or in-person, which could facilitate widespread dissemination. Implications and directions for future research are discussed.     

Examining Social Desirability in Measures of Religion and Spirituality Using the Bogus Pipeline

A primary concern in the psychology of religion is the distinct possibility that responses to empirical assessments of individuals’ degree and type of religiosity and spirituality are exaggerated owing to social desirability bias. In spite of increased secularization in American culture and a growing distrust of organized religion, religious involvement, personal religiosity, and spirituality are still viewed as highly desirable characteristics. This study estimates the extent of social desirability biases that affect self-reports of religion and spirituality by utilizing a bogus pipeline procedure. In this procedure, participants are convinced that experimenters can detect disingenuous responses to individual items on questionnaires through the use of physiological measures, although no physiological data are actually collected. If the self-reports of participants in the bogus pipeline condition indicate greater religiosity or spirituality than those in the control condition, self-report bias is indicated. The bogus pipeline procedure has been used in other areas of study to increase veracity of self-reports when social desirability effects are present (such as reporting sexual behaviors or prejudice). The results indicate that social desirability biases influence multiple constructs including religious orientations, religious coping, and daily spiritual experiences. Implications for future research relying on self-reports of religion and spirituality are discussed.     

Understanding the Relationship Between Religiousness, Spirituality, and Underage Drinking: The Role of Positive Alcohol Expectancies

Research has consistently found that religiousness and spirituality are negatively associated with underage drinking. However, there is a paucity of research exploring the mechanisms by which these variables influence this important outcome. With 344 underage young adults (ages 18–20; 61 % women), we investigated positive alcohol expectancies as a mediator between religiousness and spirituality (measured separately) and underage alcohol use. Participants completed the Religious Commitment Inventory-10, Daily Spiritual Experiences Scale, Alcohol Expectancies Questionnaire, and Drinking Styles Questionnaire. Results indicate less positive alcohol expectancies partially mediate the relationship between both religiousness and spirituality and underage alcohol use. This suggests religiousness and spirituality’s protective influence on underage drinking is partly due to their influence on expectations about alcohol’s positive effects. Since underage drinking predicts problem drinking later in life and places one at risk for serious physical and mental health problems, it is important to identify specific points of intervention, including expectations about alcohol that rise from religious and spiritual factors.     

Effects of a yoga-based intervention for young adults on quality of life and perceived stress: The potential mediating roles of mindfulness and self-compassion

The purpose of this pilot study was to investigate the effects of a yoga-based program on quality of life, perceived stress, mindfulness, and self-compassion in young adults. These variables were measured in 33 self-selected participants of a four-month residential yoga intervention before and after the program. Forty-three demographically matched controls completed the same questionnaires at two time points with a four-month interval inbetween. Participation in the program predicted increases in quality of life and decreases in perceived stress, mediated by mindfulness and self-compassion. Multiple mediator models revealed that the effect of group on quality of life was simultaneously mediated by mindfulness and self-compassion, while the effect of group on perceived stress was only mediated by self-compassion. These positive effects on perceived stress and quality of life suggest that yoga-based interventions may be of value in cultivating subjective well-being in young adults. Furthermore, yoga-based and mindfulness-based interventions may share underlying mechanisms.