Methodological Diversity in Positive Psychology and the Psychology of Religion and Spirituality

Abstract

Although psychologists were certainly not the first to study flourishing, virtues, spirituality, and religiousness, one of their key contributions has been to examine these constructs using the scientific method. Complex concepts such as gratitude, humility, spirituality, and religiousness present unique challenges to researchers, requiring them to utilize equal doses of scientific rigor and methodological ingenuity. In this chapter, we describe some of these efforts in both positive psychology and the psychology of religion/spirituality (R/S). Specifically, we provide examples of research using correlational cross-sectional data, longitudinal data, experiments, field research, and qualitative and mixed methods. We then discuss the strengths and weaknesses of using each approach to study positive psychological and religious/spiritual constructs. We note some advances in technology that may open new directions for research, and we discuss future directions for the fields, including issues of research transparency and the need for cross-cultural research.

Sixty years of studying the sacred: Auditing and advancing the psychology of religion and spirituality.

“…Consistent with broader trends in psychology, publications in the psychology of R/S are increasingly empirical (over 85% of the corpus since 2015 vs. 23% before 2000), experimental (over 16% since 2015 vs. 1% before 2000), and sufficiently powered (a median sample size of 292 since 2015, indicating the average study is sufficiently powered [.93] to detect associations at the r = .20 level). On the one hand, these trends reflect the field’s broader focus on enhanced methodological rigor (Tsang et al, 2023), empirical robustness (Nosek et al, 2022), and big-data research (Woo et al, 2020). Yet, on the other hand, these trends may suggest the psychology of R/S field is less theory-driven and conceptually robust than it has been historically, which would be consistent with alleged broader trends in mainstream psychology (Burghardt & Bodansky, 2021).…”

“…These abysmal gaps simply cannot persist if the field is to remain viable, because such underrepresentation impairs our subfield’s ability to advance scientific knowledge validly, credibly, and robustly. As Tsang et al, 2023 and others have noted, moving beyond simply recruiting Western Educated Industrialized Rich and Democratic (WEIRD) samples is an imperative for advancing psychological science on R/S.…”

“…This situation is by no means unique to the psychology of R/S subfield. A recent analysis of the entire corpus of empirical articles in psychology found only 11% were qualitative and 3% mixed methods (Tsang et al, 2023). The low rate of qualitative work may be an artifact of educational training, perceived value, or the present audit’s English-language restriction.…”

“…Regardless, qualitative approaches add a unique dimension to the subfield, and without them, science and practice on R/S are weakened. Qualitative and mixed-methods studies hold such great promise for the subfield because most religious/spiritual phenomena are complex, multidimensional, context-sensitive, and culturally embedded, and qualitative and mixed methods can capture these facets better than quantitative-only methods can (Tsang et al, 2023). Although the typical response to such lacunae is passive (i.e., simply wait for articles to arrive), a preferred strategy for change is active, such as by catalyzing increased qualitative and mixed-methods projects via special sections/issues (e.g., Davis & Tisdale, 2016), funding initiatives, and award competitions 3…”

Where are we, and where should we go? An introduction to Davis et al., “Sixty years of studying the sacred: Auditing and advancing the psychology of religion and spirituality”.

“…Our findings are inescapably measure-dependent; what we know depends on how we know. The dominance of quantitative variable-centered analytic approaches may yield an “efficient but incomplete picture of very complex phenomena” (Tsang et al, 2023, p. 113). I concur with scholars who think that “it is difficult if not impossible to adequately capture religion and spirituality by reducing it to numbers” (Hardy & King, 2019, p. 249).…”