The Complexity of Quest in Emerging Adults’ Religiosity, Well‐Being, and Identity

Abstract

The construct of quest as measured by the Quest Scale raises complexities that this study addressed with online surveys measuring religiosity, ego identity, and well-being of graduates from two Christian colleges. Intrinsic questers (those above the scale midpoint in intrinsic and quest scores but below the extrinsic midpoint) made up over half of those high in intrinsic religiosity and did not differ in Christian orthodoxy, religious identity, religious coping, or well-being from the pure intrinsics (those high in intrinsic religiosity). Indiscriminately pro-religious questing individuals (those high in intrinsic and extrinsic religiosity and quest) were less religious and showed poorer coping than intrinsic questers. Quest appears to be a reasonable measure of religious orientation, improving prediction of Christian orthodoxy, religious identity, and religious coping, and was more highly correlated with ego identity exploration than with stress. In association with intrinsic religiosity quest does not appear to indicate weak religiosity or poor well-being. Instead, intrinsic questers may pursue a distinctive developmental trajectory, a path of existential searching by which emerging adults manage the demands of contemporary culture while maintaining a mature faith.

Spirituality at a crossroads: A grounded theory of Christian emerging adults.

“…Engaging rather than avoiding spiritual struggle seemed to indicate a more robust R/S in this sample. Our findings regarding spiritual struggle also corroborate another recent study by Cook, Kimball, Leonard, and Boyatzis (2014). The study examined religious quest (i.e.…”

Generational Variation in Young Adults’ Attitudes toward Legal Abortion: Contextualizing the Role of Religion

“…Abortion is one of the most contentious issues in U.S. society and has been a primary source of individual and collective debate, local and national political action, and religious and secular conflict for at least the past 60 years (see, for example, Cook et al 2014; Rinaldo 2013; Rohlinger 2015). Political campaigns, social movements, media networks, organizational frameworks, religious movements, and medical policies have each been influenced by debates concerning access to legal abortion (Dillon 2014).…”

Religiousness and Rape Myth Acceptance: Risk and Protective Effects

“…Students may therefore need reassurance that exploration, although temporarily unsettling or anxiety provoking, can lead to internalizing their faith further and in such a way as to maintain commitments while also remaining open to exploration. An integrated intrinsic–quest religiousness could help in coping with stress and foster life satisfaction (Cook et al, 2014) and promote religious virtues such as humility (Jankowski & Sandage, 2014). Encouraging exploration may take time, and students will need a safe and supportive relational context for doing so.…”

“…Different religious motivations can create distinct subgroups of religious college students, with individuals engaging in religious behavior for multiple, simultaneous reasons. For example, individuals high in quest and high in intrinsic religiousness showed elevated well-being relative to other religious subgroups (Cook, Kimball, Leonard, & Boyatzis, 2014; Jankowski et al, 2015). We therefore hypothesized that intrinsic religiousness would not be a significant predictor within the mediation model, but would moderate the quadratic association between quest religiousness and rape myth acceptance, such that when intrinsic religiousness was higher, the protective effect would occur at higher levels of quest (i.e., lowest levels of rape myth acceptance when both intrinsic and quest religiousness are high).…”