Sacrilege: A Study of Sacred Loss and Desecration and Their Implications for Health and Well-Being in a Community Sample

In this study, we proposed that people understand major life events in terms of spiritual as well as psychological, social, and physical dimensions. Specifically, we examined the possibility that life events that are perceived to be sacred losses or violations of the sacred (i.e., desecrations) have significant implications for the health and well-being of the individual. A total of 117 adults, randomly selected from a community, identified the most negative life event they had experienced in the past two years. They then completed measures of the degree to which they appraised this event as a sacred loss and as a desecration, as well as measures of religious coping, the impact of the event, and four sets of criteria: traumatic impact, physical health, emotional distress, and growth. These hypotheses were largely supported. Sacred loss and desecration were unrelated to physical health. However, they were tied to higher levels, though somewhat differential patterns, of emotional distress. While sacred loss was predictive of intrusive thoughts and depression, desecration was tied to more intrusive thoughts and greater anger. Furthermore, sacred loss was linked to greater posttraumatic growth and positive spiritual change; in contrast, desecration was associated with less posttraumatic growth. The links between the spiritual appraisals and outcomes were partially mediated by positive and negative methods of religious coping. These findings underscore the importance and multidimensionality of the spiritual meanings people attribute to major life stressors.     

Religion, Meaning in Life, and Change in Physical Functioning During Late Adulthood

This study has two primary goals. The first is to see whether select aspects of religion are associated with meaning in life. The second goal is to see whether change in meaning in life is associated with change in physical functioning. Data from a nationwide longitudinal survey of older people provide support for the following relationships: (1) older adults who attend church services more often tend to develop a closer relationship with God; (2) older people who have a closer relationship with God are more likely to provide emotional support to others; (3) elders who give emotional support to their social network members are more likely to have a stronger sense of meaning in life; and (4) older individuals who have a deeper sense of meaning in life are less likely to experience a decline in their physical functioning over time.     

Hey,How did I become a Role Model? Privacy and the Extent of Role‐Model Obligations

Much of the public criticism of many public figures, such as that of Michael Phelps, Lindsay Lohan, and Bill Clinton, accuses those persons of failing as role models. The criticism often ascribes to public figures role‐model status in a general sense that encompasses their behaviour in aspects of life beyond the fields for which they are known. I argue that, because of privacy considerations, we are unjustified in ascribing broadly to public figures role‐model status in the general sense. Unless public figures hold themselves out to be role models regarding other aspects of life, we are justified in demanding only that they be good role models with respect to their behaviour in their particular fields. To make my arguments, I demonstrate that: 1) we are justified in ascribing role‐model status to individuals far less often than most believe; 2) legitimate role‐model obligations typically do not extend as far into role models' lives as most believe; and, 3) those who try to convince public figures to be better role models should redirect their efforts toward educating young people about who are proper role models and about what aspects of role‐models' lives young people should imitate.     

Meaning gained versus meaning lost: The effects of meaning salience on anxiety and depression during the coronavirus pandemic

People who have meaningful lives generally experience less anxiety and depression. Meaning salience, or the awareness of the meaning in one's life, is believed to partially explain this relationship. However, in times of isolation, what might be most salient to people are the meaningful aspects of their lives that have disappeared. This study seeks to understand how making gained versus lost meaning salient affects anxiety and depression. Participants either wrote for 5 minutes about how their life gained meaning (n = 29) or lost meaning (n = 30) due to the coronavirus restrictions, or about music (i.e., the control condition; n = 32). Those who wrote about gained meaning experienced less momentary anxiety than those who wrote about lost meaning. In addition, meaning salience moderated the relationship between meaning and both anxiety and depression. Those who wrote about gained meaning appeared to exhibit a positive relationship between meaning in life (MIL) and both anxiety and depression, while those who wrote about lost meaning exhibited negative relationships. In all, this suggests that meaning salience is not always positive and that researchers and practitioners should consider how making positive meaning salient may be more beneficial than a general focus on MIL.     

控制感与老年人生命意义：自我认同和政策支持的作用

本研究探讨了控制感、自我认同、对政策支持的感知等因素如何影响老年人的生命意义感。通过对300多名来自北京、香港和台北的老年人的调查,发现控制感和政策支持对老年人生命意义感的影响显着,二者不仅主效应显着,同时存在交互作用。进一步的分析还发现：政策支持在控制感与生命意义感的关系中起调节作用——高政策支持感增强了控制对生命意义感的正向作用;自我认同在控制感与生命意义感的关系中起部分中介作用。结果对积极应对老龄化问题与增进老年人身心健康有重要的理论和现实意义。     

Biblical Inerrancy and Depressive Symptoms

A number of investigators have studied biblical inerrancy (i.e., the belief that the Bible is inspired by God, free from error, and should be interpreted literally). However, there has been little research on the relationship between biblical inerrancy and mental health outcomes. The purpose of this study is to address this gap in the literature. This is accomplished by estimating a latent variable model that was designed to empirically evaluate the following relationships: (1) Blacks, people with less education, and conservative Christians are more likely to have a strong belief in biblical inerrancy; (2) people with a strong belief in biblical inerrancy are more likely to experience demonic spiritual struggles when they are faced with stressful events; (3) individuals who experience demonic spiritual struggles are more likely to feel that the sacred aspects of their lives have been threatened; and (4) greater sacred loss is associated with more depressive symptoms. Data from a recent nationwide survey (N?=?2332) provide support for each of these relationships.     

Spirituality,health care,and bioethics

This article explores the relationship of spirituality to health care and bioethics in terms of the need and efforts of people to make sense of their lives in the face of illness, injury, or impending death. Moving beyond earlier associations with specific religious traditions, spirituality has come to designate the way in which people can integrate their experiences with their sense of ultimate meaning and related values. The holistic model of health care also affirms that one should not simply treat a body in pain, but respond to the suffering of the whole person within his or her full life. A narrative emphasis in ethics also maintains that ethical decisions occur within the framework of interacting life-stories, each of which embodies a certain core vision and set of values. In each instance it is the life stories of people, their lived narratives, that provide a common thread. The telling of these stories and the discernment of the lived spirituality they contain may assist persons in the process of achieving understanding, making decisions, and finding purpose in the experience of illness, injury, or disability.Maureen Muldoon, Ph.D., is Associate Professor in the Department of Religious Studies, University of Windsor, Windsor, Ontario, and Norman King, Ph.D., is Professor in the same department.     

Why are people with insecure attachments unhappy? The mediation of meaning in life

This study explores the mediating role of meaning in life with respect to the relationship between adult attachment and psychological well‐being. This study proposed that because people with insecure attachments have difficulty in connecting with the external world, this may decrease their ability to attain meaning in life, which may in turn diminish their well‐being. Two studies (N = 155 and 234, respectively, with age range from 18 to 31) were conducted. Participants completed self‐report measures of attachment, well‐being and meaning in life. The results consistently revealed a full mediation effect of meaning in life on the relationship between attachment and well‐being. The findings suggested that a deeper sense of meaning in life comes from one's connection with the external world, especially with other people.     

RESEARCH: "A Higher Purpose: The Sanctification of Strivings in a Community Sample"

Most adults in a community sample (N = 150; ages 25-56) perceived their top 10 strivings as being connected to God (theistic sanctification) and having sacred, transcendent qualities (nontheistic sanctification), with highest ratings given to religious goals, family relationships, altruistic endeavors, and existential concerns. Greater sanctification of strivings correlated positively with the importance, commitment, longevity, social support, confidence, and internal locus of control of strivings. Based on 5 phone interviews about the prior 48 hr, people invested more time and energy in their 2 most highly sanctified strivings than their 2 least sanctified strivings. Greater sanctification of strivings related to a greater sense of life purpose and meaning and joy yielded by strivings but not fewer psychological or physical health difficulties.     

Sanctification of life and health: insights from the landmark spirituality and health survey

The purpose of this study is to examine the relationship between sanctification of life and health. Sanctification is defined as a process through which aspects of life are perceived as having divine character and significance. A latent variable model was created to test the following hypotheses that link sanctification with health: (1) people who attend worship services more often are more likely to develop a sanctified view of life; (2) individuals who develop a sanctified view of life are likely to be more compassionate, (3) people who are more compassionate will provide more emotional support to others, (4) providing more support to others will be associated with a greater sense of meaning in life, and (5) people who have derived a deeper sense of meaning in life will enjoy better health. Data from a new cross-sectional nationwide survey (N?=?2932) provide support for each of these hypotheses.     

God-Mediated Control and Change in Self-Rated Health

The purpose of this study was to see if feelings of God-mediated control are associated with change in self-rated health over time. In the process, an effort was made to see if a sense of meaning in life and optimism mediated the relationship between God-mediated control and change in health. The following hypothesized relationships were contained in the conceptual model that was developed to evaluate these issues: (1) people who go to church more often tend to have stronger God-mediated control beliefs than individuals who do not attend worship services as often; (2) people with a strong sense of God-mediated control are more likely to find a sense of meaning in life and be more optimistic than individuals who do not have a strong sense of God-mediated control; (3) people who are optimistic and who have a strong sense of meaning in life will rate their health more favorably over time than individuals who are not optimistic, as well as individuals who have not found a sense of meaning in life. Data from a longitudinal nationwide survey of older adults provided support for each of these hypotheses.     

Continuity and Meaning

We see symptoms in our restless and disconnected youth and in the aging baby-boom generation indicating that many people are having difficulty experiencing meaning in their lives. One way to address this is to restore and create continuity in the lives of individuals beginning from the time of birth and proceeding throughout the passages of life. The components of continuity are consistent and coherent child care, a sense of realness, a sense of control, a sense of past, present, and future, availability of spaces without fear, childrearing consistent with the socio-economic environment, experiential marking comprised of historical-cultural narrative and ongoing ritual, and communion. While it is often impossible to have all aspects of continuity present at any one time, the successful intertwining of continuity's threads during one's lifetime can help reestablish purpose and meaning where it may have been lost.     

Themes of Self‐Regulation and Self‐Exploration in the Life Stories of Religious American Conservatives and Liberals

A sample of 128 highly religious (Christian) midlife American adults completed a series of attitudinal and personality trait measures and narrated 12 important autobiographical scenes in their life stories. Individuals high on self‐reported political conservatism tended to accentuate the theme of self‐regulation in their life stories, repeatedly describing important autobiographical scenes wherein they struggled to control, discipline, manage, restrain, protect, or preserve the self. By contrast, individuals high on political liberalism tended to emphasize the theme of self‐exploration, telling stories about expanding, discovering, articulating, or fulfilling the self. Demographics and dispositional traits (especially openness to experience) showed significant associations with conservatism‐liberalism, as well, but these variables did not mitigate the robust relationship between life‐narrative themes and political orientation. The results are discussed in terms of a broadened understanding of personality that conceives of dispositional traits and narrative identity as comprising distinct layers and complementary features of psychological individuality, both implicated in political lives.     

Does affluence impoverish the experience of parenting?

Acquiring greater financial resources before having children seems like an intuitive strategy for people to enhance their well-being during parenthood. However, research suggests that affluence may activate an agentic orientation, propelling people to pursue personal goals and independence from others, creating a conflict with the communal nature of parenting. Coherence between one's goals and actions has been theorized to be essential for the experience of meaning in life. Thus, we hypothesized that affluence would be associated with a diminished sense of meaning during childcare. In Study 1, using the Day Reconstruction Method (DRM), we found that socioeconomic status (SES) was negatively related to the average sense of meaning parents reported across episodes of the day when they were taking care of their children. In Study 2, a reminder of wealth produced a parallel effect; when parents were exposed to a photograph of money, they reported a lower sense of meaning in life while spending time with their kids at a children's festival. These findings contribute to our understanding of the relationship between wealth and well-being by showing that affluence can compromise a central subjective benefit of parenting—a sense of meaning in life.     

新冠肺炎疫情影响下的死亡心理质性探究

在新型冠状病毒威胁下,人们不得不思考一些终极的存在问题,比如生命与死亡。本研究采用扎根理论,探索新冠肺炎疫情影响下人们面对死亡威胁时的心理机制。抽取18名成年被试进行深入访谈,对资料依次进行开放式编码、主轴编码和选择性编码。结果发现,随着时间发展死亡心理分为疫情前的平静期,疫情爆发后的死亡威胁期以及应对期。从物理现实、社会现实和精神现实层面,死亡威胁带给人们的影响有控制感丧失、关系断裂以及意义危机三个方面,应对策略为控制感应对、关系应对及意义应对。     

Meaning in life for individuals with physical disabilities

What makes your life meaningful?" is a question previous researchers explored with people of various ages, but not of individuals who have significant physical impairments. In this study, 26 individuals with physical disabilities were asked to describe what makes their lives meaningful. Analysis showed human relationships were the most frequently reported source of meaning in life, the sources being family members, friends, and people in the community. The second most frequently cited meaning was service, specifically, helping and educating others, such as other people with physical disabilities.     

NEAR‐DEATH EXPERIENCES AND SPIRITUALITY

Abstract. Some individuals when they come close to death report having experiences that they interpret as spiritual or religious. These so‐called near‐death experiences (NDEs) often include a sense of separation from the physical body and encounters with religious figures and a mystical or divine presence. They share with mystical experiences a sense of cosmic unity or oneness, transcendence of time and space, deeply felt positive mood, sense of sacredness, noetic quality or intuitive illumination, paradoxicality, ineffability, transiency, and persistent positive aftereffects. Although there is no relationship between NDEs and religious belief prior to the experience, there are strong associations between depth of NDE and religious change after the experience. NDEs often change experiencers' values, decreasing their fear of death and giving their lives new meaning. NDEs lead to a shift from ego‐centered to other‐centered consciousness, disposition to love unconditionally, heightened empathy, decreased interest in status symbols and material possessions, reduced fear of death, and deepened spiritual consciousness. Many experiencers become more empathic and spiritually oriented and express the beliefs that death is not fearsome, that life continues beyond, that love is more important than material possessions, and that everything happens for a reason. These changes meet the definition of spiritual transformation as “a dramatic change in religious belief, attitude, and behavior that occurs over a relatively short period of time.” NDEs do not necessarily promote any one particular religious or spiritual tradition over others, but they do foster general spiritual growth both in the experiencers themselves and in human society at large.     

Personality and Health Outcomes: Making Positive Expectations a Reality

Trait optimism is associated with better health, but the reason for this association is unclear. The present investigation focused on specific goals and negative emotions as potential pathways through which optimism can lead to better health. College students (n = 336) in the U.S. reported their mental and physical health at the start of an academic term and during finals. Over the course of the term, they reported three daily events and rated the extent to which they were motivated to attain positive outcomes (approach goals) or avoid negative outcomes (avoidance goals). Greater optimism predicted fewer mental and physical health symptoms at the end of the term, controlling for initial symptoms. This association between optimism and symptoms was mediated by the intensity of avoidance goals and negative emotion during the term. These findings suggest that positive expectations do predict better health and this relationship is partially due to the goals people set in their daily lives.     

Psychological resources, positive illusions, and health

Psychological beliefs such as optimism, personal control, and a sense of meaning are known to be protective of mental health. Are they protective of physical health as well? The authors present a program of research that has tested the implications of cognitive adaptation theory and research on positive illusions for the relation of positive beliefs to disease progression among men infected with HIV. The investigations have revealed that even unrealistically optimistic beliefs about the future may be health protective. The ability to find meaning in the experience is also associated with a less rapid course of illness. Taken together, the research suggests that psychological beliefs such as meaning, control, and optimism act as resources, which may not only preserve mental health in the context of traumatic or life-threatening events but be protective of physical health as well.     

The Contribution of Music to Positive Aging: A Review

Many people value music as an important part of their everyday lives. The published literature reveals that the role of music in life is varied: it can be recreational, educational, social, emotional, therapeutic, and spiritual. The importance and relevance of music depends on the life needs and interests of the individual and the social group within which he/she lives. It is now widely recognized that music for many older people is crucial in supporting a sense of well-being. The article reviews the evidence on the role of music in promoting health and well-being, and how it can produce positive psychological and physiological benefits for individuals. The aim of this article is to increase awareness among health professionals of the importance of music and discuss how it can be used to add to older people's lives.