Development and yearning: Cognitive aspects of spiritual development

Spirituality is important to humans but gets little attention in experimental studies of life span cognitive development. One way to integrate such studies is to examine cognitive aspects of spiritual development using complex postformal Piagetian models. Four possible points of interface within postformal models are: developmental stages; elements of emotion and will; multiperson cognition; and forms taken by the processes used. Testable hypotheses are outlined and some possible difficulties to be expected within such research are discussed.     

The Development of Cognitive Reflection in China

Cognitive reflection is the tendency to override an intuitive response so as to engage in the reflection necessary to derive a correct response. Here, we examine the emergence of cognitive reflection in a culture that values nonanalytic thinking styles, Chinese culture. We administered a child-friendly version of the cognitive reflection test, the CRT-D, to 130 adults and 111 school-age children in China and compared performance on the CRT-D to several measures of rational thinking (belief bias syllogisms, base rate sensitivity, denominator neglect, and other-side thinking) and normative thinking dispositions (actively open-minded thinking and need for cognition). The CRT-D was a significant predictor of rational thinking and normative thinking dispositions in both children and adults, as previously found in American samples. Adults’ performance on the CRT-D correlated with their performance on the original CRT, and children's performance on the CRT-D predicted rational thinking and normative thinking dispositions even after adjusting for age. These results demonstrate that cognitive reflection, rational thinking, and normative thinking dispositions converge even in a culture that emphasizes holistic, nonanalytic reasoning.     

Understanding the Ageing Process: A Developmental Perspective of the Psychosocial and Spiritual Dimensions

SUMMARY

This chapter describes a perspective of psychosocial and spiritual development in the later years of life. It outlines a study of nurses conducted in six nursing homes using pre and post workshop tests to identify changes in nurses' assignment of a list of behaviours as psychosocial or spiritual. Use of SPSS found significant changes between the pre and post tests. Pre workshop tests only identified items as spiritual if they included the word God, or Bible. Results from this study highlight the potential role for nurses in aged care to provide spiritual care as part of holistic care. It also highlights the fact that many nurses feel ill prepared for this role.     

发展的认知神经科学--神经科学与认知发展研究的融合点

本文介绍了发展的神经科学自 2 0世纪 80年代以来在早期突触形成、关键期及丰富环境对脑发育的影响等领域的一些突出成就 ,阐述了从神经科学与认知发展共同研究的主题来考察两个学科的整合的意义 ,并对发展的认知神经科学研究的未来趋势作了展望。     

Spiritual pathology and religious coping as predictors of forgiveness

Spiritual pathology, religious coping, and dispositional forgiveness were investigated in two studies with graduate students at a Christian university-based seminary. Spiritual pathology was operationalised using measures of spiritual instability and spiritual grandiosity. Study 1 (N?=?194) examined patterns of correlation between positive and negative religious coping items, spiritual pathology, and dispositional forgiveness. Spiritual instability correlated with numerous positive and negative religious coping items while spiritual grandiosity did not. Dispositional forgiveness correlated with more positive than negative religious coping items. Study 2 (N?=?214) tested regression models with these variables. Spiritual grandiosity showed a significant quadratic (concave down) effect in predicting dispositional forgiveness while the linear effect was not significant. A hierarchical regression model showed positive religious coping, spiritual instability, and the quadratic effect for spiritual grandiosity each predicted unique variance in dispositional forgiveness after controlling for spiritual impression management. Negative religious coping was not related to dispositional forgiveness when included with these variables.     

Empathic-Cognitive Development in Students of Counseling

Empathy is both crucial to counseling and a desired outcome in higher education. Since the 1960s, many studies have examined the relationship between stages of adult cognitive development and level of empathy, particularly in counselors. Though positive, findings related to this critical research focus have been grounded in small, local samples, leading several investigators to call for a replication using a large, national sample. In response, this study surveyed 340 graduate student members of a large professional counseling association across the United States. Results indicated that more mature forms of thought (according to the Perry scheme) are associated with higher empathy levels (Hogan scale). Implications are drawn for adult development theory, education of counselors, and higher education reform.     

Everyday mysticism: Spiritual development in later adulthood

Most cultures contain a belief that aging, with its long span of life experience, can lead to spiritual growth or development. Theories of spiritual development have focused primarily on stages of spiritual growth, with less attention to its relation to the cultural life course. This paper posits that contemplative, mystical experience is the primary psychological dynamic that enables the qualitative change in life perspective that we associate with spiritual growth. While theoretically possible at any adult age, this shift in perspective is correlated with physical and psychological aging, with the relaxation of social demands that typifies the life stages of later adulthood, and with the simple, close-to-home lives led by many individuals after age 75.     

Finding New Language

Abstract

This study examined the role of faith, both religion and spirituality, on the sexual satisfaction of lesbian/queer and bisexual women (n = 318). A hierarchical regression was used to determine the potential influence of religion and spirituality above and beyond the variance explained by three background variables (i.e., age, sexual orientation, living with partner status). While religion did not significantly contribute to women's reports of sexual satisfaction, results indicated that both living with a partner and spirituality had a significant positive relationship with sexual satisfaction. In particular, two aspects of spirituality (spiritual freedom and connectedness) were strong predictors of sexual satisfaction.     

Centering prayer’s effects on psycho-spiritual outcomes: a pilot outcome study

Centering prayer is a spiritual and religious form of meditation grounded in the history of Christian contemplative prayer. Despite its popularity, empirical research investigating centering prayer’s effects on psycho-spiritual outcomes is relative sparse. This pilot outcome study explored the effect of a centering prayer workshop on participants’ (N?=?9) depression, anxiety, stress, spiritual transcendence, religious crisis, faith development, and mindfulness. Several significant changes were noted over the course of the six-week study, including decreased anxiety and stress, and increased faith development and mindfulness. Interestingly, we noted that participants likely also experienced a spiritual or religious struggle that follows the established spiritual development paradigm called the Dark Night of the Soul. The study did not include a control group, and so did not account for effects related to history, maturation, or regression to the mean. Nevertheless, the initial results prove promising to develop more sophisticated research programmes that replicate the study’s findings.     

基于表征水平评估辨析的后形式运算阶段观

以表征水平评估为实例,对有关将后形式运算作为超越皮亚杰形式运算的认知发展阶段之理论观点进行评析。在理论探讨的基础上,结合对252名成人被试认知适应性发展水平的实证考察,分析结果表明,一些后形式运算的评估方法、实证数据及理论逻辑在建构超越形式运算之上的认知发展阶段中存在空泛与薄弱之处。     

Developmental Differences in Metacognition and their Connections with Cognitive Development in Adulthood

This study investigated developmental differences in some metacognitive variables in ill-defined problem solving and their possible connections with cognitive development in adulthood. Participants were 57 individuals of different ages (adolescents, young adults, mature adults and older adults). They solved one well-defined and six ill-defined problems while their thinking-aloud was taped. They then answered a metacognitive statements questionnaire. Differences in performance were statistically significant in all problems: the best results in interpolation and divergent production problems were achieved by the younger adult group and the best performance on most dialectical everyday problems was found in the mature adults' group. We found no significant differences between age groups in the on-line monitoring of the solving process. Accuracy in metacognitive statements was however significantly better in the mature adult and the younger adult groups. Awareness of and reflection on one's own mental processes showed a similar developmental pattern to relativistic/dialectical thought: low expression in adolescence, an increase in early adulthood, a peak in mature adulthood and a minor decline in later years.     

Rethinking women's ways of knowing: Gender commonalities and intersections with postformal thought

Belenky, Clinchy, Goldberger, and Tarule (1986) identified five ways of knowing in women: silent, received, subjective, procedural, and constructed. This study examined the extent to which they were used by both women and men and their intersection with postformal, relativistic thought (Sinnott, 1989b). As listed, the ways of knowing fall along a continuum of increasingly complex thought; hence, overlap between constructed knowing and relativistic thought was expected. Thirty female and 30 male university students (aged 27 to 43 years) completed a structured interview about ways of knowing, solved two hypothetical everyday problems, and completed the Bem Sex Role Inventory. Age predicted neither ways of knowing nor relativistic thought; increasing education was predictive of relativistic thought but not constructed knowing. Neither women nor men relied on received knowing; women used subjective knowing more than men did, while the opposite was true for procedural knowing. While there were no gender differences in relativistic thought or constructed knowing, femininity was associated positively with both. Finally, procedural knowing decreased while constructed knowing increased with increasing evidence of relativistic thought.     

The Development of a Brief Version of the Santa Clara Strength of Religious Faith Questionnaire

The increasing interest between religiosity and health benefits has created the need for a brief, reliable, valid, and practical instrument to measure strength of religious faith. The purpose of this study is to develop a brief version of the Santa Clara Strength of Religious Faith Questionnaire (SCSRFQ). The SCSRFQ has been reduced from a ten-item questionnaire to a five-item scale, making it more suitable for administration to severely ill patients and for use in large-scale epidemiological studies. To create the brief version, 1584 participants completed the SCSRFQ. Results were evaluated for high correlation coefficients between individual item responses and the overall total 10 questions from the original scale. Items to be used in the abbreviated version were also selected on the basis of having moderate and centered means and high standard deviations. Thus, the items selected for the brief version generally correlated highly with the total score for the longer questionnaire and provided adequate variability. The reduced version, using questions 2, 4, 5, 8, and 10 of the original scale provides a > 0.95 correlation with results from the longer version.     

Spiritual sensitivity in the classroom: a teaching experiment in Finnish upper secondary religious education

The interest to research spirituality in the classroom has been constant over the last decade. However, empirical research into classroom pedagogy and the lived experience of religious education has been scarce. This study describes a small-scale intervention that aimed to promote students’ spiritual reflection in Finnish upper secondary school RE classes by using stimulating tasks. One class (N?=?23) of upper secondary school students (16–18?years of age) participated in the study. Analysis of students’ responses after the silent reflection moments suggested that the tasks were successful in eliciting some level of spiritual reflection for most of the students. In this article, we describe the experiment and the content and nature of this reflection, as well as discuss the advantages and challenges of spiritually sensitive teaching methods in a classroom of heterogeneous worldviews.     

Reconciling Spiritual Values Conflicts for Counselors and Lesbian and Gay Clients

Counselors and lesbian and gay clients experience parallel values conflicts between religious beliefs/spirituality and sexual orientation. This article uses critical thinking to assist counselors to integrate religious/spiritual beliefs with professional ethical codes. Clients are assisted to integrate religious/spiritual beliefs with sexual orientation.     

The Present State of Workplace Spirituality: A Literature Review Considering Context,Theory, and Measurement/Assessment

This article seeks to review the growing body of research in the field of workplace spirituality, extending the earlier and broader literature review work of Danna and Griffin; Miller and Gorsuch; Hill and Hood; the Fetzer Institute; Moberg, Mohamed, Hassan, and Wisnieski; Day; and Lund Dean and Fornaciari. This article also seeks to advance future psychometric scale development in the burgeoning field of workplace spirituality; by suggesting a rubric for understanding the literature (manifestation, development, and adherence), and analyzing the scale validity and reliability, the authors hope to expand conceptual imagination for new scale research.

This article argues that the previous research which has begun to address important aspects of research scale development, though it has been limited in its applicability to workplace contexts, does not address diverse religious traditions and fails to understand how and the degree to which individual or collective spirituality integrates and manifests itself in the workplace. To this end, this article will codify and extend the aforementioned work by identifying the drivers for the field, exploring the connections between spirituality/religion and organizations, reviewing existing scales and instruments, discussing the literature review findings, and identifying gaps within the research, and it will resolve by suggesting specific areas for further research.     

Alignment and Misalignment in Personal and Organizational Spiritual Identities

This article reports on an Australian empirical study that aimed to explore how managers and professionals experience spirituality in the workplace. The rationale for the study lay in the paucity of empirical studies on workplace spirituality in Australia, as compared with the burgeoning literature published in the United States (Bell, Rajendran, & Theiler, 2012, p. 68). Through an inductive and interpretive approach, the analysis gave rise to a grounded theory concerned with personal and organizational spiritual identity. Organizational spiritual identity was communicated through values, practices, discourse, nonverbal artifacts, written documents, policies, and contributions to charities, for example. When personal and organizational spiritual identities were misaligned, the potential for conflict and dilemmas with damaging consequences for employees and organizations intensified.     

医务社会工作介入的灵性视角：理论、实践与展望

灵性健康被学者视为所有健康层面中最深沉、最核心的部分,可以支持和影响其他的健康层面。不过,在当前中国的医务社会工作实践中,灵性资源相对匮乏,还没有得到应有的重视。在不同历史时期,医务社会工作中的灵性视角有着多层次、多维度的丰富内涵。在医务社会工作实践中,灵性视角的运用体现在非线性的介入策略、丰富的实务技术,重视服务对象的生命意义问题。灵性视角具有独特的意义和价值,与医务社会工作有较强的契合性。在医务社会工作实务、研究和教育中,需要加强对灵性视角的理解和自觉应用。

     

Spiritual Development: Han F. De Wit's and Stanislav Grof's Differing Approaches

For both Han F. de Wit and Stanislav Grof, spirituality constitutes an essential part of humaneness; a life built on materialism is deemed an impoverished life. For de Wit, spirituality yields courage, compassion, joy, clarity of mind, and consequently wisdom. For Grof, personal spiritual experiences gained during altered states of consciousness are of central interest. After defining spirituality, these views, built on long-term personal experiences of the authors and those of others, are explicated in detail. Both authors describe their respective approaches to spiritual development. In either approach, third-person knowledge and judgments (e.g., on humanness) have to be supplemented by first-person knowledge and judgments arrived at appropriately (e.g., on humaneness).