Religion and Spirituality: Unfuzzying the Fuzzy (PDF) - 1997

Religion and Spirituality: Unfuzzying the Fuzzy Author(s): Brian J. Zinnbauer, Kenneth I. Pargament, Brenda Cole, Mark S. Rye, Eric M. Butter, Timothy G. Belavich, Kathleen M. Hipp, Allie B. Scott and Jill L. Kadar Source: Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion , Dec., 1997, Vol. 36, No. 4 (De...

Religion and Spirituality: Unfuzzying the Fuzzy Author(s): Brian J. Zinnbauer, Kenneth I. Pargament, Brenda Cole, Mark S. Rye, Eric M. Butter, Timothy G. Belavich, Kathleen M. Hipp, Allie B. Scott and Jill L. Kadar Source: Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion , Dec., 1997, Vol. 36, No. 4 (Dec., 1997), pp. 549-564 Published by: Wiley on behalf of Society for the Scientific Study of Religion Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/1387689 JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at https://about.jstor.org/terms Wiley and Society for the Scientific Study of Religion are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion This content downloaded from 129.7.106.29 on Sat, 19 Aug 2023 20:12:45 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms Religion and Spirituality: Unfuzzying the Fuzzy BRIAN J. ZINNBAUERt KENNETH I. PARGAMENTt BRENDA COLE MARK S. RYE ERIC M. BUTTER TIMOTHY G. BELAVICH KATHLEEN M. HIPP ALLIE B. SCOTT JILL L. KADAR The present study attempts to measure how individuals define the terms religiousness and spirituality, to measure how individuals define their own religiousness and spirituality, and to examine whether these definitions are associated with different demographic, religio/spiritual, and psychosocial variables. The complete sample of 346 individuals was composed of 11 groups of participants drawn from a wide range of religious backgrounds. Analyses were conducted to compare participants' self-rated relig- iousness and spirituality, to correlate self-rated religiousness and spirituality with the predictor variables, and to use the predictor variables to distinguish between participants who described themselves as "spiritual and religious" from those who identified themselves as "spiritual but not religious." A content analysis of participants' definitions of religiousness and spirituality was also performed. The results sug- gest several points of convergence and divergence between the constructs religiousness and spirituality. The theoretical, empirical, and practical implications of these results for the scientific study of religion are discussed. in the past 20 years, interest in religiousness and spirituality has increased, and a la number of social scientists have attempted to define, study, and theorize about these two terms (e.g., Ingersoll 1994; Shafranske and Gorsuch 1984; Spilka 1993; Turner, et. al 1995). Still, the ways in which the words are conceptualized and used are often inconsistent in the research literature. Despite the great volume of work that has been done, little consensus has been reached about what the terms actually mean. In particular, the term spirituality has as times been used so loosely that one researcher has called it a "fuzzy" concept that "embraces obscurity with passion" (Spilka 1993: 1). Not surprisingly, spirituality has been described recently as an obscure construct in need of empirical grounding and operation- alization (Hood et al. 1996; Spilka 1993; Spilka and McIntosh 1996). Current conceptions of religiousness and spirituality in the social scientific study of religion are nothing if not diverse. Definitions of religiousness have ranged from subscrip- tion to institutionalized beliefs or doctrines (Vaughan 1991), to "a system of beliefs in a t Brian J. Zinnbauer is a doctoral student in clinical psychology at Bowling Green State University, Bowling Green, OH 43403. Email: bzinnba&choice,net. t Kenneth Pargament is a professor of psychoklgy and director of clinical training in the Clinical Psychology Program at Bowling Green State University, Bowling Green, OH 43403. Brenda Cok, Mark Rye, Eric Butter, Timothy Belavich, Kathleen Hipp, Allie Scott, and Jill Kadar were all doctoral students in clinical or social psychology at Bowling Green State University during the preparation of this manuscript. i) Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, 1997, 36(4): 549-564 549 This content downloaded from 129.7.106.29 on Sat, 19 Aug 2023 20:12:45 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms 550 JOURNAL FOR THE SCIENTIFIC STUDY OF RELIGION divine or superhuman power, and practices of worship or other rituals directed towards such a power" (Argyle and Beit-Hallahmi 1975: 1), to "the feelings, acts, and experiences of individual men in their solitude, so far as they apprehend themselves to stand in relation to whatever they may consider the divine" (James 1902/1961:42). Current definitions of spirituality are equally diverse. Spirituality has been variously defined by theorists as "the human response to God's gracious call to a relationship with himself" (Benner 1989: 20), "a subjective experience of the sacred" (Vaughan 1991: 105), and "that vast realm of human potential dealing with ultimate purposes, with higher entities, with God, with love, with compassion, with purpose"(Tart 1983: 4). Furthermore, the terms spirituality and religiousness have been used interchangeably and inconsistently by some authors. For example, Miller and Martin (1988: 14) frequently interchange the terms even after they explicitly state that spirituality "may or may not include involvement in organ- ized religion". The finding that researchers define these terms differently is mirrored in the ways that religious and spiritual believers themselves define the terms. For example, Pargament, Sullivan, Balzer, Van Haitsma, and Raymark (1995) used a policy-capturing approach to assess the meanings college students and clergy attribute to the word religiousness. Their findings indicated that different individuals attributed different meanings to religiousness. To some, religiousness meant church attendance, to others it meant acts of altruism, and to others it meant performing religious rituals. Similarly, if popular publications such as Newsweek and Time reflect the views and attitudes of the American public, contemporary spirituality is also defined in diverse ways. Popular references to spirituality have included elements such as interest in angels, New Age interest in crystals and psychic readings, and evangelical or Pentecostal religious experiences. While this diversity of opinion regarding religiousness and spirituality may enrich our understanding of the constructs, the inconsistency in the definitions can also have some negative implications for social scientific research. First, without a clearer conception of what the terms mean, it is difficult to know what researchers and participants attribute to these terms. Second, a lack of consistency in defining the terms impairs communication within the social scientific study of religion and across other disciplines interested in the two concepts. Third, without common definitions within social scientific research it becomes difficult to draw general conclusions from various studies. Past and Present Trends in Defining Religiousness and Spirituality Historically, spirituality was not distinguished from religiousness until the rise of secularism in this century, and a popular disillusionment with religious institutions as a hindrance to personal experiences of the sacred (Turner et al. 1995). In the past 25 years, interest in spirituality has greatly increased (Roof 1993), and American religious life has shifted to include more elements defined as %piritual." At the same time, there has been a drop in public confidence in religion and religious leadership (Roof 1993; Turner et al. 1995). Consequently, spirituality has begun to acquire distinct meanings and connotations. With regard to religiousness, social scientific research has traditionally adopted either a substantive or functional approach (Pargament 1997). The substantive approach focuses on the beliefs, emotions, practices, and relationships of individuals in relation to a higher power or divine being. At the center of the definition is the sacred, and it is the sacred which fundamentally characterizes religiousness. The functional approach on the other hand emphasizes the function that religiousness serves in the life of the individual. Beliefs, emo- tions, practices, and experiences are examined, but the focus is how they are used in dealing with the fundamental problems of existence such as life, death, suffering, and injustice (Pargament 1997). What is notable about these past approaches to religiousness is that they This content downloaded from 129.7.106.29 on Sat, 19 Aug 2023 20:12:45 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms RELIGIOUSNESS AND SPIRITUALITY: UNFUZZYING THE FUZZY 551 are all fairly broad and include a wide range of elements. Consequently, definitions and con- ceptualizations within these traditions have been broad enough to subsume the "spiritual" as well as both individual and institutional beliefs and activities. As spirituality has become differentiated from religiousness, however, it has taken with it some of the elements for- mally included within religiousness. Therefore, recent definitions of religiousness have become more narrow and less inclusive. Current writings by some scholars and researchers in the scientific study of religion reflect these popular definitional changes. Whereas religiousness historically included both individual and institutional elements, spirituality is now commonly regarded as an individ- ual phenomenon and identified with such things as personal transcendence, supraconscious sensitivity, and meaningfulness (Spilka and McIntosh 1996). Religiousness, in contrast, is now often described narrowly as formally structured and identified with religious institu- tions and prescribed theology and rituals. Additionally, both terms now differ according to how they are evaluated. Whereas his- torically both religiousness and spirituality were broadly considered to have both positive and negative elements (Pargament 1996), spirituality has recently acquired a specific posi- tive connotation through its association with personal experiences of the transcendent (Spilka and McIntosh 1996). Religiousness, in contrast, has been negatively tagged by some as a hindrance to these experiences (Turner et al. 1995). Also, as the label of spirituality has conceptually broken away from religiousness it has been adopted by identifiable groups of believers. One example comes from Roof s (1993) study of 1,599 members of the baby-boomer generation. According to Roof there was a large defection of baby boomers from organized religions in the 1960s and 1970s, and an increase in "new religions" which emphasized direct spiritual experience over institutional religion. One segment of this generation, termed by Roof as the "highly active seekers," were those baby boomers who adopted a highly individualized spirituality which rejected organized religion and traditional forms of worship. Accordingly, this group tended to identify them- selves as "spiritual" and not "religious." In comparison to other baby boomers, Roof charac- terizes this group as more educated, more individualistic, more likely to engage in 'mystical" religion which may contain various New Age beliefs and practices, less likely to hold a "theistic" belief about God, more likely to view their faith as a "spiritual journey" or a "quest," and more likely to come from homes in which their parents attended religious services infrequently. Therefore, the religious and spiritual landscape has undergone changes in recent his- tory, and it appears as if researchers' conceptualizations of religiousness and spirituality have not all caught up. As evident in the research literature, a great deal of energy has recently been expended by theorists and researchers in defining the terms religiousness and spirituality, and some common themes can be seen in the ways they are conceptualized. Very little attention, however, has been paid to the ways the general public defines the terms. Apart from a handful of studies which have explored the meanings that individual believers attribute to religiousness and spirituality (e.g. Clark 1958; Coe 1900; McReady and Greeley 1976; Pargament et al. 1995; Roof 1993, Zinnbauer 1997), precious little research has addressed how individual believers think about and distinguish the terms. Moreover, few investigations have considered whether self-evaluations of religiousness and spirituality are associated with distinctive demographic, religio/spiritual, and psychosocial factors. The Present Study The present study was designed in two parts. First, several questions regarding the ways in which individuals characterize themselves and their beliefs with regard to relig- This content downloaded from 129.7.106.29 on Sat, 19 Aug 2023 20:12:45 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms 552 JOURNAL FOR THE SCIENTIFIC STUDY OF RELIGION iousness and spirituality were investigated. These questions included the following: how do individuals define the terms religiousness and spirituality; to what degree do individuals rate themselves religious and/or spiritual; what beliefs do they hold about God; how do they view the conceptual relationship between religiousness and spirituality; and what positive or negative connotations do they attribute to the terms religiousness and spirituality? Second, the association between the answers to the above questions and different demographic, religio/spiritual, and psychosocial variables was explored. Specific hypotheses were made only for the relationship between self-rated religiousness and spirituality and the various demographic, religio/spiritual, and psychosocial variables. Based upon the pre- viously cited work by Roof (1993), it was hypothesized that self-rated spirituality would be related to mystical experiences, New Age beliefs and practices, a pantheistic or agnostic belief about God, religious quest, higher income and education, group experiences related to spiritual growth, and the experience of being hurt by clergy. Based on previous research relating religiousness to such variables as religious orthodoxy and right-wing authoritari- anism (see Hood et al. 1996, for a summary), it was hypothesized that self-rated religious- ness would be related to right-wing authoritarianism, religious orthodoxy, intrinsic relig- iousness, and parental religiousness. Self righteousness, frequency of church attendance, and age were also expected to be related to self-rated religiousness. It was expected that both self-rated religiousness and spirituality would be related to frequency of prayer. METHOD Participants Eleven different samples from Pennsylvania and Ohio were collected for this study. Groups were specifically selected from different churches, institutions, and age groups that were likely to hold different definitions and self-reported levels of religiousness and spiritu- ality. These groups included members of a rural Presbyterian church (54 questionnaires dis- tributed, 37 returned complete), a conservative Catholic church located in a small town (50 distributed, 26 returned), a nontraditional Episcopal church (70 distributed, 15 returned), a rural Lutheran church (30 distributed, 11 returned), an urban Unitarian church (60 distrib- uted, 40 returned), and several "New Age" groups (66 distributed, 17 returned). Addition- ally, the five other participant groups included community mental health workers (60 dis- tributed, 27 returned), students at a small, conservative Christian liberal arts college (80 distributed, 79 returned), students at a State University (50 distributed, 38 returned), nursing home residents (23 distributed, 20 returned), and faculty at a college of nursing (65 distributed, 36 returned). The total number of surveys distributed was 608, and 346 were returned complete (57%). The entire sample consisted of 112 males (32%) and 234 females (68%), whose ages ranged from 15 to 85 (X = 40). The sample was predominantly white (95%). The median household income level of this sample was $50,000-$64,000; 39% of the participants were married; and the median highest level of education completed was some college. Procedure The questionnaires were distributed to participants by several different methods. For the church and New Age groups, the investigators passed out the questionnaires after wor- ship services or meetings to those willing to participate, or gave the questionnaires to clergy to distribute to other church members. These participants either returned the question- naires directly to the investigators or returned them by mail. Questionnaires distributed to the community mental health workers were placed either on their desks or in their mail- This content downloaded from 129.7.106.29 on Sat, 19 Aug 2023 20:12:45 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms RELIGIOUSNESS AND SPIRITUALITY: UNFUZZYING THE FUZZY 553 boxes at the mental health agency. These questionnaires were returned to the investigator's mailbox or placed on his desk. Nursing home residents were asked to participate by gradu- ate student clinical assistants. Student respondents who were willing to participate were given the questionnaires at the end of an introductory psychology class and asked to return them at the next class. Students received extra credit points for their participation. Measures Measures of religiousness and spirituality. Participants' self-definitions and concep- tions of religiousness and spirituality were assessed in several ways. First, respondents were asked to write their own definitions of religiousness and spirituality. Second, partici- pants responded to two 5-point Likert-type items according to the degree they consider themselves religious and spiritual. Third, respondents were asked to choose one of four statements that best defined their own religiousness and spirituality: I am spiritual and religious; I am spiritual but not religious; I am religious but not spiritual; I am neither spiri- tual nor religious. Fourth, participants were asked to choose among five sets of statements that describe the ways in which they believe that the concepts of religiousness and spiritu- ality relate to one another. The five descriptions involved the following relationships: spirituality is a broader concept than religiousness and includes religiousness; religiousness is a broader concept than spirituality and includes spirituality; religiousness and spirituality are different and do not overlap; religiousness and spirituality are the same concept and overlap completely; religiousness and spirituality overlap but they are not the same concept. Fifth, participants rated Religiousness and Spirituality on a 20-item abbreviated form of Osgoods's (1969) Semantic Differential scale. This scale yielded two scores: evaluation of religiousness and spirituality as positive I negative, and evaluation of religiousness and spirituality as potent/impotent. High potency for this scale indicates an evaluation of relig- iousness or spirituality as severe, strong, and constrained. Religio/spiritual and psychosocial measures. Three widely known and used measures of religious attitudes and behaviors were used in the present research: the Intrinsic Religiousness scale (Hoge 1972), the Quest scale (Batson and Ventis 1982), and a shortened 9-item version of the Orthodoxy scale (Batson and Ventis 1982). Two additional measures were used to assess less conventional religious or spiritual beliefs and experiences: items were selected from two subscales (Ego Quality, Unifying Quality) of the Mysticism Scale, Research Form D (Hood 1975), and a new scale was created for this study to measure 'New Age" beliefs in such things as reincarnation and psychic phenomena. The Cronbach alpha calculated for this new scale was.85. Three final measures were used to assess nonreligious or nonspiritual attitudes or behaviors: a measure of self-righteousness (Falbo and Belk 1985); shortened forms of the Right Wing Authoritarianism scale (Altemeyer 1981), and the Subjective Individualism-Collectivism scale (Triandis 1995), which was broken down into four subscales characterized as independence from others, interdependence with others, indi- vidual competitiveness, and self-sacrifice for others. Cronbach alphas for all of the shortened scales ranged from.61 to.93 and were judged to be adequate. The only scale with low inter- nal consistency was the Quest scale (Cronbach alpha =.39). An additional measure was designed to assess participants' beliefs about God. This item asked respondents to choose among five beliefs about God. These five descriptions included theistic, pantheistic, deistic, agnostic, and atheistic perspectives (see Appendix). This content downloaded from 129.7.106.29 on Sat, 19 Aug 2023 20:12:45 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms 554 JOURNAL FOR THE SCIENTIFIC STUDY OF RELIGION FIGURE 1 GRAPH OF GROUP MEANS FOR SELF-RATED RELIGIOUSNESS AND SPIRITUALITY 5 4 1 2 3 4 s 6 7 8 9 10 1 GrRoups 1 = New Age Gr-oups (n = 17) 7 = Rural Presbyterians (n = 37) 2 = Mental Health Workers (n = 27) 8 = Faculty at a College of Nursing (n = 36) 3 = Nontraditional Episcopalians (n =15) 9 = Conservative Christian College Students (n =79) 4 = Unitarians (n = 40) 10 = Nursing Home Residents (n = 20) 5 = Mainstream College Students (n =38) 11 = Roman Catholics (n= 26) 6 = Rural Lutherans (n = 11) RESULTS Socdcoo tm:rltosi frlgosest prtaiy eifaotGd ef Self-Definitions and Conceptions of Religiousness and Spirituality Self-rated religiousness and spirituality. Means were calculated for each of the 11 par- ticipant groups on the 5-point self-rated Religiousness and Spirituality scales. These results can be seen in Figure 1. Of note from this analysis is that there were intragroup differences 1idewtiAgeaGioupas reinou an 17) 7prtul Re RuralnPesbyothefrians hio itnm reg37)n in levels of religiousness and spirituality. For the overall sample, self-rated spirituality ( X = 3.93) was significantly higher than self-rated religiousnWess (X = 3.23) (t(343) = 10. 79, p <.001). Additionally, for all groups except the conservative Catholic group and the nursing home resident group, self-rated spirituality was significantly higher than self-rated religiousness. However, some groups reported considerably greater religious-spiritual dis- crepancy than others. For example, the New Age group was highest in self-rated spirituality ( X = 4.65) and lowest in self-rated religiousness ( X = 2.65) (t(6) = 5.83, p <.001). Additionally, mental health workers reported high self-rated spirituality ( X = 3.85), and low self-rated religiousness ( X = 2.67) (t(26) = 6.68,p <.001). In contrast, the conservative Christian college students displayed less discrepancy between self-rated spirituality ( X 3.90) and self-rated religiousness ( X 3.53) (t(8) = 2.82, p