Religious/Spiritual Development and Positive Psychology: Toward An Integrative Theory

Abstract

Throughout the history of psychology, scholars and practitioners have sought to understand religious/spiritual (R/S) development and its intersections with well-being. Several models of R/S development have been proposed, but they have neither been well-integrated with each other nor studied and applied broadly in the field of positive psychology. This chapter’s purpose is to draw on existing longitudinal research on R/S development to propose an integrative theory for guiding developmental science and practice on religion, spirituality, and positive psychology. This Positive Religious and Spiritual Development (PRSD) theory posits that people’s religiousness/spirituality (a) is motivated by goals designed to meet psychological needs (e.g., for acceptance, predictability, and competence); (b) consists of mental/neural representations (stored beliefs, emotions, action tendencies, and physiological responses) and R/S habits that develop and change through relational experiences at the micro-, meso-, and macrolevels; (c) is influenced by numerous contextual factors (e.g., age, sex/gender, culture, and faith tradition), including personal and sociocultural assets and liabilities (risk and resilience factors); and (d) interacts bidirectionally with people’s holistic well-being via psychological, social, behavioral, and physical pathways. We offer illustrative examples of PRSD theory, highlight some of its caveats and limitations, and discuss applications for clinical practice and religious ministry.

Spirituality and meaning-making across contexts: Structural topic modeling of the Fetzer spirituality study in the United States.

“…The participants’ recounted how reading scripture, reflecting on math, and excursions in nature deepened their connection to their referent of transcendence. This finding corresponds to research on relational spirituality (Sandage et al, 2020), reciprocating spirituality (King & Boyatzis, 2015; King et al, 2014), and positive R/S development (Davis et al, 2023) which posit that spiritual practices can deepen engagement with transcendence.…”

“…Park’s research shows that people evaluate and respond to information from micro to macro levels to adjust their meaning systems by drawing on their R/S beliefs, communities, and practices for making sense out of loss and struggle (Paloutzian & Park, 2021; Park, 2010). These ideas are aligned with recent descriptions of positive R/S development, which assert that because the mind is a self-organizing system, people naturally seek coherence and consequently develop “patterns of thinking, feeling, relating, and behaving” that comprise R/S habits (e.g., reflection, virtue) based on their spiritual search for sacred meaning that might occur through prayer, worship, or service (Davis et al, 2023, p. 285).…”

“…Consistent with reciprocating spirituality, these findings provide examples of how individuals find meaning through diverse referents of transcendence and how meaning inspires prosocial action (King & Boyatzis, 2015; King et al, 2014; Lerner et al, 2003). Furthermore, these findings are aligned with positive R/S development, which asserts that people seek coherence through developing cognitive–affective and sociobehavioral patterns that enable the spiritual search for sacred meaning (Davis et al, 2023). Taken together, Topic 1 reinforced meaning-making as a central component to spirituality across belief systems, and the participants’ narratives provide examples of how meaning acquired through spiritual pursuits serves to guide and orient people as they continue to make sense of the world and understand their roles in it.…”

“…Moreover, they exhibited values-aligned behaviors that served to further their engagement with God, nature, or math (Balswick et al, 2016; King & Boyatzis, 2015). Similarly, positive R/S development emphasizes the reciprocal nature of internal cognitive–affective R/S habits (i.e., reflection) and enacted sociobehavioral R/S habits (Davis et al, 2023).…”

“…RDS metatheories provide comprehensive frameworks for understanding human development, highlighting that all organisms are embodied and embedded and emphasizing that development occurs through bidirectional relationships across different levels of developing systems (Lerner, 2018; Overton, 2015). RDS provides a helpful lens for understanding R/S development because it encourages investigating the many psychological capacities involved in R/S and how they can develop in complex and diverse ways within and between people and across various systems (Davis et al, 2023; Hardy & King, 2019; King et al, 2021). This includes macrosystemic influences such as an individual’s beliefs about and their perceptions of the sacred or transcendent.…”