(2015, March/August). Presented at the Midyear Research Conference on Religion and Spirituality, Provo, Utah / the convention of the International Association for the Psychology of Religion, Istanbul, Turkey. Abstract: Religion and well-being are known to correlate positively in the North American population. Building partly on this premise, recent research has explored the common ground shared by these broad constructs. This work has introduced new hybrid constructs that describe individual differences in, e.g., the quality of relationships with one’s God or religious community, the degree of doubt felt about religious beliefs, or the sense of spiritual transcendence. Meanwhile, the USA’s religiously unaffiliated minority population has grown in size and proportion. To what extent can explicitly religious or spiritual forms of well-being coherently describe people who do not consider themselves religious nor spiritual? Our study focused specifically on a new, multidimensional measure, the Religious and Spiritual Struggles (RSS) scale, which assesses six correlated types of struggle: Divine, Demonic, Interpersonal, Moral, Ultimate Meaning, and Doubt. We measured these struggles, life satisfaction, meaning in life, and the search for meaning in a large sample of American undergraduates. Each participant self-identified as “religious but not spiritual”, “spiritual but not religious”, both, or neither. The RSS achieved strict measurement invariance across these groups, which strongly supports its construct validity regardless of religiousness, spirituality, or the absence of either or both. Group means for all latent factors differed, but in unexpected ways. Spiritual but not religious participants reported the least spiritual struggles of all kinds except Ultimate Meaning. Means for participants who identified as both religious and spiritual did not differ significantly from means for participants who identified as neither religious nor spiritual, despite these groups’ ostensibly opposite perspectives on religion and spirituality. However, these groups contrasted most sharply in terms of how religious and spiritual struggles related to external variables, especially meaning in life, which related more weakly within the nonreligious, nonspiritual group. Religiousness and spirituality independently moderated relationships between well-being and these domain-specific struggles.

1. The Religious and Spiritual Struggles
of the Nonreligious and Nonspiritual
Nick Stauner, Julie J. Exline, Alex Uzdavines, & David F. Bradley
Case Western Reserve University
Kenneth I. Pargament
Bowling Green State University

2. Outline
• Religious & spiritual (R/S) struggle
…without religion or spirituality?
• Religion vs. spirituality
Groups:
“Religious but not spiritual” “Spiritual but not religious”
“Both religious and spiritual” “Neither religious nor spiritual”
• Distributions of R/S struggles
• Correlations of R/S struggles with meaning in life

3. • Strong empirical evidence of links in the USA
• Religion may provide:
• Existential meaning and life orientation
• Comfort and coping mechanisms
• Social identity and support
• Motivates scientific study of religion, but isn’t the whole story
Religion and well-being

4. Religious and spiritual struggle
• A relatively young niche in the psychology of religion
• Distinct from religiousness and stress*
• Religiousness rs = -.19–.42 Depression/anxiety rs = .22–.44
• Important correlates:
• Emotional distress, disorders, suicidal ideation
• Physical health, illness symptoms, rehabilitation outcomes, longevity
*Exline, Pargament, Grubbs, & Yali (2014). Psychology of Religion and Spirituality, 6(3), 208–222.

5. The Religious and Spiritual Struggles Scale*
• Brand new (2014)
• 26 items, 6 dimensions
• “Over the past few months, I have...”
• Divine – “wondered if God really cares”
• Demonic – “felt attacked by the devil or by evil spirits”
• Interpersonal – “had conflicts with other people about [R/S] matters”
• Moral – “felt guilty for not living up to my moral standards”
• Ultimate Meaning – “questioned whether life really matters”
• Doubt – “felt troubled by doubts or questions about [R/S]”
*Exline, Pargament, Grubbs, & Yali (2014). Psychology of Religion and Spirituality, 6(3), 208–222.

6. R/S struggles without religion?
• Existential threats*:
• Death  Divine
• Isolation  Interpersonal
• Freedom  Moral
• Meaninglessness  Ultimate meaning
• Demonic  Search for malign agents is instinctual, adaptive
• Doubt  Conformity pressure; Pascal’s wager
*Yalom (1980). Existential psychotherapy.

7. Spirituality vs. religion in theory
Spirituality
• Personalized, experiential
• May not involve the supernatural
Religion
• Socially organized, emergent at community level
• Belief set: origins, ethics, fate, metaphysics

8. Research questions
• Does the RSS work for people who aren’t religious or spiritual?
• Do these groups have different distributions of R/S struggles?
• Do meaning in life & R/S struggles still correlate in these groups?

9. Sample demographics
• N = 3,106 undergraduates
• Age: mean = 19.1, SD = 2.1
• 63% female
• 73% Christian

10. Religious & spiritual identity
Religious Nonreligious Total
Spiritual 1,631 (52.7%) 691 (22.3%) 2,322 (75%)
Nonspiritual 378 (12.2%) 396 (12.8%) 774 (25%)
Total 2,009 (64.9%) 1,087 (35.1%) 3,096

11. Measurement invariance
• Metric and scalar invariance
• Different latent means
Invariance test χ² df χ² df CFI RMSEA
Model 1,566 1,040 1.51 .999 .026
Loadings 2,168 1,097 1.98 .997 .036
Intercepts 2,030 1,304 1.56 .998 .027
Latent means 4,726 1,322 3.57 .992 .058

12. Distributions of divine struggle
Median
.05
.01
.07
-.41a
ba

13. Distributions of demonic struggle
ba c
Median
-.38
-.37
.36c
-.65a

14. Distributions of interpersonal struggle
ba
Median
.11
-.24a
.05
-.26a

15. Distributions of moral struggle
ba c
Median
-.09
-.03
.22c
-.62a

16. Distributions of ultimate meaning struggle
ba
Median
.27b
.04
-.12
-.02

17. Distributions of doubt struggle
b*
a
Median
.13
.10
.03
-.42a

18. Summary of distribution differences
• Neither religious nor spiritual: least struggles overall
• Both religious and spiritual: most demonic & moral struggles
• Spiritual: more interpersonal struggle than not spiritual
• Spiritual but not religious: most meaning struggle
• Oddly few differences between “S, not R” and “R, not S”

19. The Meaning in Life Questionnaire*
Presence of meaning in life subscale:
1. “I understand my life’s meaning.”
2. “My life has a clear sense of purpose.”
3. “I have a good sense of what makes my life meaningful.”
4. “My life has no clear purpose.” (Loads negatively / reverse-coded.)
5. “I have discovered a satisfying life purpose.”
• Rated on 7-point Likert scale: “absolutely true”–“absolutely untrue”
*Steger, Frazier, Oishi, & Kaler (2006). Journal of Counseling Psychology, 53, 80–93.

20. Correlations of meaning & divine struggle
Correlation
-.23
-.17
-.22
-.17

21. Correlations of meaning & demonic struggle
Correlation
.01†
-.02†
-.07*
.09

22. Correlations of meaning & interpersonal struggle
Correlation
-.15†
-.09
-.22*
-.08

23. Correlations of meaning & moral struggle
Correlation
-.07
-.14*
-.18*
-.02

24. Correlations of meaning & meaning struggle
Correlation
-.35
-.38
-.36
-.34

25. Correlations of meaning & doubt struggle
Correlation
-.23*
-.18
-.28†
-.15

26. Summary of correlations
• All correlations negative*
• Spiritual but not religious: weakest correlations with meaning*
• *Except Demonic struggles among “spiritual but not religious” (r = .09)
• Religious but not spiritual: strongest correlations on average
• Strongest, most consistent relationship with meaning struggles

27. Theoretical conclusions
• The RSS doesn’t require religiousness or spirituality.
• Struggles occur in all groups, but to subtly different degrees.
• Struggles are less central to “spiritual but not religious” people.
• But still relevant!
• Especially ultimate meaning struggles

28. Implications for future research
• Religious & spiritual struggles may occur in all subpopulations.
• RSS are particularly important for “religious but not spiritual” people.
• Ultimate meaning struggle is particularly important for everyone!

29. Credits
Grant funding from the John Templeton Foundation (#36094)

30. Thanks!