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.     

BRIEFLY NOTED

This study examines the intersection between spirituality and premarital sexuality. College students from a Midwestern university (N = 151) completed measures of their beliefs about the sanctification of sexual intercourse in loving, nonmarital relationships. A subsample of 65 participants completed parallel measures regarding current sexual relationships. Greater sanctification was related to increased sexual satisfaction in this subgroup. Increased belief in the sanctification of sexual intercourse was related to increased sexual behavior in the total sample. Finally, the sanctification of sexual intercourse demonstrated incremental validity in the prediction of sexual behavior and satisfaction beyond the effects of attitudes toward premarital sex, dating status, and general religiousness. Overall, these results suggest that sanctification is a unique and useful way to examine the connection between sexuality and spirituality.     

Faces in the Clouds: A New Theory of Religion (Book)

This study applies the construct of sanctification to college students' perceptions of their bodies. Students (N = 289) completed measures on the extent to which they viewed their bodies as being a manifestation of God (e.g., "My body is a temple of God") and as characterized by sacred qualities (e.g., holy, blessed, sacred). Greater levels of both forms of sanctification were related to higher levels of health-protective behaviors, strenuous exercise, satisfaction with one's body, and disapproval of alcohol consumption as well as to lower levels of illicit drug use, unhealthy eating practices, and alcohol consumption. Viewing the body as having sacred qualities was also related to lower rates of binge eating and illicit drug use.     

Mediation and moderation of the relationship between intrinsic religiousness and mental health

The present study examined specific aspects of individuals' personal strivings as mediators, and religious tradition as a moderator, of the relationship between intrinsic religiousness and mental health. In a sample of 268 university students, the negative relationship between intrinsic religiousness and hostility was mediated by the degree of sanctification within individuals' strivings. The relationships between intrinsic religiousness and both anxiety and depression were moderated by religious tradition, with Catholics' intrinsic religiousness significantly associated with greater anxiety and depression but Protestants' intrinsic religiousness not significantly associated with either of these mental health variables. Implications of these results for future research on religiousness are discussed.     

Continulty in the Life Story: Self-Defining Memories, Affect, and Approach/Avoidance Personal Strivings

To study affective responses to memories and their relationship to personal strivings, 117 participants (65 males, 52 females) wrote selfdefining memories and indicated their affective responses to the memories. A week later they generated personal strivings, rated them along 10 dimensions, and indicated the relevance of their memories to the strivings. Participants who recalled more memories relevant to the attainment of their strivings felt more positively about their memories. Additionally, participants who listed greater percentages of avoidance strivings also recalled more memories related to the nonattainment of their strivings. Participants with higher percentages of avoidance strivings also recalled less positive memories. In an extension of Emmons's (1986) research, participants' feelings about personal strivings were linked to their affective responses to memories generated a week earlier. These results support a goal-based theory of affect and a role for motivation in memory.     

Assumption,Union and Sanctification: Some Clarifying Distinctions

In this article I engage with the notion that Christ ought to be understood to have a fallen human nature because Christ sanctifies human nature, and it is fallen humanity that needs sanctifying. In opposition to this line of thought, I argue that the Son of God assumed an unfallen nature, but with the powers of fallenness operative within it, and that this notion is consistent with a distinct account of sanctification. In support of these claims, I develop distinctions between a conjoining union and a transferring union, and between the Chalcedonian union at the incarnation and the extension of that union on the cross. At the assumption a conjoining union occurred, not a transferring union. Christ sanctified his own nature, prior to a transferring union.     

Going forward by drawing from the past: personal strivings, personally meaningful memories, and personality traits

The present research explored the idea that what people strive for in their daily lives is meaningfully linked to their autobiographical memories and stable personality characteristics. Study 1 showed that (a) personal strivings (both self-reported and content coded) are related to the emotional and motivational content of self-defining memories, (b) personal strivings are related to self-esteem and narcissism, and (c) the relation between personal strivings and personality is partially mediated by memory content. Study 2 extended these findings to a longitudinal context and showed that personal strivings and memory content reciprocally influence each other over time. Together, the findings suggest that when people consider how to move forward in their lives, they draw on their past experiences to establish goals for the future and that the way this process plays out is shaped by people's stable personality characteristics.     

Everyday Strivings in War Veterans With Posttraumatic Stress Disorder: Suffering From a Hyper-Focus on Avoidance and Emotion Regulation

This research investigated whether combat veterans' daily strivings are related to the presence of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and well-being. Veterans created a list of their most important strivings, which were content-analyzed for emotion regulation and approach or avoidance themes. It was hypothesized that veterans pursuing strivings with themes of emotion regulation or avoidance experience deleterious consequences compared with other veterans. For all veterans, devoting finite time and energy in daily life to regulating emotions was associated with less purpose, meaning, and joy compared with other strivings. Veterans with PTSD endorsed more strivings related to emotion regulation and devoted considerable effort to emotion regulation and avoidance strivings. Yet, these efforts failed to translate into any discernible benefits; veterans without PTSD derived greater joy and meaning from strivings focusing on approac- oriented behavior and themes other than emotion regulation. The presence of PTSD and a high rate of emotion regulation strivings led to the lowest global well-being and daily self-esteem during a 14-day assessment period. The presence of PTSD and a high rate of avoidance strivings also led to lower emotional well-being. Results indicate that strivings devoted to regulating emotions or avoidance efforts influence the mental health of veterans with and without PTSD. Studying personality at different levels of analysis—traits, strivings, and life narratives—allows for a fine-grained understanding of emotional disorders.     

Perfectionism and exam performance: The mediating effect of task-approach goals

Perfectionistic strivings are positively correlated with students’ achievement goals and exam performance. However, so far no study has employed a prospective design investigating whether achievement goals mediate the positive relationship between perfectionistic strivings and exam performance. In the present study, 100 university students completed a measure of self-oriented perfectionism and socially prescribed perfectionism (Hewitt & Flett, 1991) and received a chapter from a textbook to study for 2–4 days. Then they returned to the lab to complete a measure of achievement goals following the 3 × 2 model (Elliot, Murayama, & Pekrun, 2011) and sit a mock exam testing their knowledge of the chapter. Multiple regressions showed that socially prescribed perfectionism negatively predicted exam performance when the overlap with self-oriented perfectionism was controlled for. In contrast, self-oriented perfectionism—a defining indicator of perfectionistic strivings—positively predicted exam performance. Moreover, task-approach goals mediated the positive relationship between self-oriented perfectionism and exam performance. The findings suggest that perfectionistic strivings make students adopt task-approach goals that help them achieve better results on exams.     

Perfectionistic strivings and perfectionistic concerns interact to predict negative emotionality: Support for the tripartite model of perfectionism in Canadian and Chinese university students

For most individuals, perfectionistic strivings and perfectionistic concerns coexist to varying degrees. While there is agreement that within-person combinations of perfectionistic strivings and perfectionistic concerns produce meaningful “subtypes”, the number and characterization of these within-person combinations is still debated. The two most prominent person-centered perfectionism models (the tripartite model and the 2 × 2 model) offer differing characterizations of how perfectionistic strivings effects perfectionistic concerns’ relationship with psychological outcomes. According to the 2 × 2 model, perfectionistic strivings buffers against the negative effects of perfectionistic concerns. The 2 × 2 model thus claims the most deleterious within-person combination of perfectionistic strivings and perfectionistic concerns is low strivings and high concerns. In contrast, according to the tripartite model, perfectionistic strivings exacerbates the maladaptive effects of perfectionistic concerns. The tripartite model thus claims the most maladaptive within-person combination of perfectionistic strivings and perfectionistic concerns is high strivings and high concerns. The present study tested these competing claims in a group of English speaking Canadians and a group of Mandarin speaking Chinese. Results support the tripartite model of perfectionism.     

Striving for the moral self: the effects of recalling past moral actions on future moral behavior

People's desires to see themselves as moral actors can contribute to their striving for and achievement of a sense of self-completeness. The authors use self-completion theory to predict (and show) that recalling one's own (im)moral behavior leads to compensatory rather than consistent moral action as a way of completing the moral self. In three studies, people who recalled their immoral behavior reported greater participation in moral activities (Study 1), reported stronger prosocial intentions (Study 2), and showed less cheating (Study 3) than people who recalled their moral behavior. These compensatory effects were related to the moral magnitude of the recalled event, but they did not emerge when people recalled their own positive or negative nonmoral behavior (Study 2) or others' (im)moral behavior (Study 3). Thus, the authors extend self-completion theory to the moral domain and use it to integrate the research on moral cleansing (remunerative moral strivings) and moral licensing (relaxed moral strivings).     

On Christian Discernment and the Problem of the Theological

This article lays the groundwork for a theology of discernment that seeks to address modern anxieties about the integrity of the theological by showing how Christian believers are sanctified for the identification of true speech about God. It does so by arguing that post‐Kantian understandings of the activity of the human subject in judgement need not be seen as inimical to an account of Christian discernment, that recognition of Paul's understanding of the place of discernment in the Christian life points to alternatives to Barth's attempt to resolve the difficulties of the theological through an exclusive appeal to divine activity, and that Augustine develops a helpful account of the place of a theology of discernment in addressing the problem of the theological by treating the connection between these topics as an element within theologies of sanctification and creaturely vocation.     

Career-related goal pursuit among post-high school youth: Relations between personal control beliefs and control strivings

The present research reveals the bi-directional relationship between career-related control beliefs and strivings, and their predictive relationship with hours of gainful employment. Three waves of data of a longitudinal study of 532 graduating high school seniors from four ethnically diverse schools in the Los Angeles Unified School District were analyzed using structural equation modeling. The results show individuals?? career-related personal control beliefs in effort and social connections, but not in ability or luck, were significantly predictive of career-related control strivings 1?year later. Thus, only personal control beliefs in causal factors that are contingent on an individual??s primary control strivings to enact effects are predictive of active motivational engagement in pursuit of career-related goals. Regarding the inverse direction of influence (i.e., strivings predict beliefs), career-related control strivings were significantly predictive of career-related personal control beliefs in ability, effort, and social connections, but not luck, 1?year later. These results support the idea that active goal engagement creates an implemental mindset that optimistically biases individuals?? beliefs in their personal control over causal factors relevant to attaining a pursued career-related goal. In addition, the results show that career-related control strivings, but not career-related personal control beliefs, are significantly positively associated with the number of hours of gainful employment worked 1-year later, supporting a beliefs-strivings-outcome sequential relationship.     

Interpersonal control strivings and vulnerability to negative social exchanges in later life

Although negative social exchanges detract from well-being, little is known about the factors that influence older adults' vulnerability to such exchanges. Interpersonal control strivings were examined as predictors of 2 dimensions of vulnerability to negative social exchanges, exposure and reactivity, in a nationally representative sample of older adults (N=916). Interpersonal control strivings refer to people's efforts to maintain harmony in their relationships and, when unsuccessful, to preserve their emotional health. The results revealed that interpersonal control strivings directed toward maintaining harmony were associated with less exposure, whereas interpersonal control strivings directed toward preserving emotional health when harmony is threatened were associated with less reactivity. Thus, complementary control processes play an important role in older adults' vulnerability to negative social exchanges.     

Expectations,procedural justice,and alternative reactions to being deprived of a desired outcome

People often find that they do not have some positive outcome they once expected to obtain, while others around them have attained that outcome. Two experiments were conducted to assess how four possible responses to such a situation are affected by procedural justice (i.e., the fairness of the procedures by which the object was denied) and by one's expectations about obtaining the outcome in the future. The four possible responses examined were anger responses, achievement strivings, devaluation of the object (X), and self-deprecation. A repeated-measures analysis revealed that the dependent variables were differentially affected in Study 1, but less so in Study 2. Analyses further revealed effects of procedural justice, such that unfair procedures led to more anger, lower achievement strivings, greater devaluation of X, and (in Study 1 only) marginally less self-deprecation. Expectations had only a marginal affect on achievement strivings in Study 1, and an effect on self-deprecation in Study 2, with higher expectations leading to lower achievement strivings and less self-deprecation, respectively. Procedural justice and expectations interacted to affect subjects' derogation of the agent who deprived them (Study 1) and their devaluation of X (Study 2). Implications for future research and for theoretical development are discussed.     

Abstract versus concrete goals: personal striving level, physical illness, and psychological well-being.

This study examined the relation between personal striving level and psychological and physical well-being. Level refers to the degree of generality versus specificity of one's goal strivings. In 3 studies, 188 Ss generated lists of their personal strivings, which were then rated on specificity level. High-level striving was associated with more psychological distress, particularly depression. Low-level striving was related to higher levels of physical illness. Correlations between striving level and self-reported symptoms were generally not as strong as those between level and the more objective illness indicators. High-level strivings were seen as more difficult and requiring more effort than low-level strivings. Results are interpreted in terms of control theory, goal-setting theory, and the repressive personality style.     

Augustine or Philistine? College Students' Sanctification of Learning and Its Implications

Sanctification is a psychological process in which aspects of life are associated with God (theistic sanctification) or sacred qualities (nontheistic sanctification). Sanctification accounts for outcomes in diverse areas, such as family, the environment, and work. One area yet to be examined is the sanctification of learning, which was addressed in the present study in a sample of 349 college students in the United States. Sanctification of education was related to better educational outcomes (i.e., positive emotions toward education, higher grade point averages, and psychological growth), partially through the mediator of good study strategies (critical thinking and self-regulation), as indicated by structural equation modeling. Hierarchical regressions revealed that sanctification of learning predicted higher levels of investment in learning, advanced study strategies, and better educational outcomes, over and above demographic and general religious variables. The present study demonstrates the beneficial implications of sanctifying learning while contributing to the growing body of literature that demonstrates the importance of the sanctification construct.     

Applying Self‐Determination Theory to the Prediction of Distress and Well‐Being in Gay Men With HIV and AIDS1

Self‐determination theory (Deci & Ryan. 1985. 1991) was used to predict psychological well‐being and distress in 48 gay men with HIV. 39 AIDS patients. and 38 HIV‐negative control participants. Participants listed 10 to 15 personal strivings and identitied their reasons for engaging in each striving. Multiple regression analyses revealed that introjection (engaging in strivings because of an internal sense of obligation or necessity) was associated with increased distress. especially among HIV‐ and AIDS participants. Introjection also predicted decreased well‐being. Integration (engaging in strivings because they are personally valued and meaningful) was positively related to well‐being. Adjustment to a life‐threatening illness is influenced by individuals' feelings of autonomy; that is. the extent to which they believe themselves to be the source of their actions.     

Searching for Prosociality in Qualitative Data: Comparing Manual,Closed-Vocabulary,and Open-Vocabulary Methods

Although most people present themselves as possessing prosocial traits, people differ in the extent to which they actually act prosocially in everyday life. Qualitative data that were not ostensibly collected to measure prosociality might contain information about prosocial dispositions that is not distorted by self-presentation concerns. This paper seeks to characterise charitable donors from qualitative data. We compared a manual approach of extracting predictors from participants' self-described personal strivings to two automated approaches: A summation of words predefined as prosocial and a support vector machine classifier. Although variables extracted by the support vector machine predicted donation behaviour well in the training sample (N = 984), virtually, no variables from any method significantly predicted donations in a holdout sample (N = 496). Raters' attempts to predict donations to charity based on reading participants' personal strivings were also unsuccessful. However, raters' predictions were associated with past charitable involvement. In sum, predictors derived from personal strivings did not robustly explain variation in charitable behaviour, but personal strivings may nevertheless contain some information about trait prosociality. The sparseness of personal strivings data, rather than the irrelevance of open-ended text or individual differences in goal pursuit, likely explains their limited value in predicting prosocial behaviour. © 2020 European Association of Personality Psychology     

Personal Strivings, Daily Life Events, and Psychological and Physical Well-Being

Interactional models of life events and personality posit domains of vulnerability within which individuals are most likely to be affected by negative life events. A variation of this model was tested in a study of the separate as well as interactive effects of daily life events and personal strivings on psychological and physical well-being. Subjects listed 15 of their personal strivings,which were later categorized as reflecting either achievement, affiliation, intimacy, or power. For 21 consecutive days, subjects recorded up to eight events that most influenced their moods each day, and completed mood and physical symptom checklists. Power strivings were negatively correlated with well-being. Affiliation strivings were correlated with positive affect. No significant between-subject interactions occurred between strivings and events. However, within-subject analyses revealed several significant effects. Achievement-oriented individuals tended to be affected by good achievement events; similarly, the moods of affiliation- and intimacy-oriented individuals were affected by interpersonal events. Results are interpreted within a transactional framework, and implications for research on personality, life events, and well-being are discussed.