Dimensions of “Spirituality”: The Semantics of Subjective Definitions

The Mysticism Scale as a Measure for Subjective Spirituality: New Results with Hood’s M-Scale and the Development of a Short Form

“…In our own cross-cultural research in the U.S. and in Germany, our content analysis and principal component analyses of 1779 free-text entries of respondents' subjective definitions of spirituality revealed that, for some, spirituality was an established part of religion, while it meant strict opposition to religious dogmatism for others (Eisenmann, Klein, Swhajor-Biesemann, Drexelius, Streib, & Keller, 2016). While spirituality, for some, was associated with a theistic worldview including God, gods, or other supernatural beings, for others it indicated a sense of connectedness with nature or the universe, and was thus embedded in a non-theistic world view.…”

Multidimensionality of Spirituality: A Qualitative Study among Secular Individuals

“…On the other hand, ethics, which was the least frequently reported dimension, was simultaneously the dimension of the highest individual importance. This result of a low frequency and high importance at the same time could clarify prevailing contradicting views on spiritual ethics (Carey 2018;Chandler 2008;Eisenmann et al 2016versus Berghuijs et al 2013Steensland et al 2018). Consequently, the concurrent consideration of frequency and importance, which lies at the heart of Huber's Centrality concept and scale, is of significant interest to spirituality research.…”

“…Which values and ethical beliefs people who define themselves as 'spiritual, but not religious' or 'rather spiritual than religious' consider important in their lives is controversially discussed (Chandler 2008;Comte-Sponville 2009). Some approaches regard an ethical dimension to be the center of the spirituality concept (e.g., Carey 2018;Eisenmann et al 2016), while others locate it at the margins of it (e.g., Berghuijs et al 2013;Steensland et al 2018). We want to raise the question if non-religious or atheist individuals report an orientation toward values in their everyday lives that can be explicitly reported or etically defined as spiritual.…”

“…While some researchers refer to spirituality as a personality dimension (Emmons 1999;Piedmont 1999), others consider spirituality to be an intelligence dimension (King and DeCicco 2009) or a more general cognitive orientation (MacDonald 2000), and yet others conceptualize spirituality as an attitude towards purpose and meaning of life (see Koenig 2008). In recent years, emic approaches have been attracting scientific attention in the way that spirituality is defined by study participants (Altmeyer et al 2015;Berghuijs et al 2013;Eisenmann et al 2016;Keller et al 2013;Steensland et al 2018) with inconsistent results depending on the religious-cultural background of the respondents that urge for meta-analytic studies.…”

Spiritual Struggles among Atheists: Links to Psychological Distress and Well-Being

“…Research has identified many different areas in which individuals find a sense of meaning in their lives, including self-transcendence (i.e., concerns beyond the self), self-actualization (i.e., achievement), order (i.e., values and decency), and well-being/relatedness (i.e., enjoying life's pleasures) (Schnell 2009). Each of these sources of meaning have been included in previous definitions of spirituality and meaning in general is often considered to be an inherently spiritual part of human existence (Eisenmann et al 2016). According to research by Schnell and Keenan (2011), these sources of meaning are open to atheists, who experience each of these types of meaning to some extent, though typically to a lesser extent than religious participants.…”