No abstract

In light of a growing body of longitudinal research on religious and spiritual (r/s) struggles and adjustment, a meta-analysis was conducted in order to synthesize literature on whether r/s struggles predict decrements in psychological adjustment over time. Multiple databases were searched for journal articles and dissertations reporting on studies that met inclusion criteria. For each study, necessary statistical information was extracted to calculate or estimate the standardized regression coefficient predicting follow-up psychological adjustment from baseline r/s struggles, controlling only for autoregressive effects. The search and screening process yielded 32 studies meeting inclusion criteria for which the necessary statistics were able to be extracted or obtained from study authors. Results indicated that r/s struggles significantly predicted increases in negative psychological adjustment (32 studies), Z r = 0.08, 95% CI [0.04, 0.10]. Results for positive psychological adjustment were non-significant (12 studies), Z r = −0.04, 95% CI [−0.11, 0.03]. These findings are consistent with a primary r/s struggles model in which r/s struggles lead to worsening psychological adjustment. This study underscores the importance of attending to spiritual struggles within clinical practice. Future studies on this topic could add to our understanding by examining longer time frames and testing secondary and complex models of the longitudinal relationship between r/s struggles and psychological adjustment.

The experience of major life stressors has been robustly linked to greater risk for depression, anxiety, and a decline in well-being. Religious and spiritual (r/s) struggles commonly occur in response to major life stressors and have been associated with greater levels of psychological distress and lower well-being. This pattern of findings suggests that stressful life events may exert their deleterious effects on adjustment, in part, through the r/s struggles they elicit. This study represents the first attempt to test this mediational model in a nationally representative sample of adults in the United States exposed to a wide range of life stressors. In a sample of 2,076 adults from the Landmark Spirituality and Health Survey, this study tested whether r/s struggles partially mediated the effect of stressful life events on psychological adjustment. Results showed support for the proposed partial mediation model. These findings support our theory that in the wake of stressful life events, many people find that their most deeply held values and beliefs are shaken, and these r/s struggles tend to be linked to the distress experienced from stressful life events. Implications for research, practice, and the community are discussed.

Starting with a study on the sanctification of marriage (Mahoney et al., 1999), Pargament and Mahoney developed two psychological scales to assess whether viewing an aspect of life as a manifestation of God (i.e., theistic sanctification) and/or imbued with sacred qualities (i.e., nontheistic sanctification) was tied to better psychosocial functioning. The current study used meta-analytic techniques to summarize the strength of correlations between sanctification and psychosocial functioning across diverse aspects of life (e.g., human body, strivings, work, marriage, and parenting). We included data from 1999 to July 2019 that were published in peer-reviewed journals (N = 49) and dissertations that had not been published (N = 14). Across these sources, we identified 66 independent cases involving positive outcomes and 43 independent cases with negative outcomes. Greater sanctification was consistently associated with greater positive psychosocial adjustment (r = .22; 95% CI = .17-.25) and less negative functioning (r = −0.10; 95% CI = −.15to −.06). We also compared the sanctification of close interpersonal relationships (r = 0.24, 95% CI = .20-.29) and other aspects of life (r = .16, 95% CI = .11-.22) for positive adjustment, and for negative adjustment (respective r's = −.12 and −.09, with 95% CIs of −.18 to −.06 and −.14 to −.04). Overall, these findings establish sanctification as a promising new construct for the psychology of religion and spiritually, one that holds significant implications for psychosocial functioning within multiple domains of life.

The purpose of the current study was to develop and evaluate a brief manualized psychospiritual treatment program, entitled From Vice to Virtue: A Guide to Personal Transformation and Spiritual Growth, that addresses spiritual struggles of a moral nature. The intervention had 2 main goals: (a) to resolve moral spiritual struggles and cultivate greater virtue in participants' lives, thereby reducing distress related to such struggles and (b) to promote spiritual growth by assisting individuals to draw upon religious and spiritual resources for motivation and strength. Participants were 50 volunteers from a modestly sized nondenominational Christian church in Southern California who were assigned to a treatment or wait-list control condition. They completed measures at pretest, posttest, and 4-week follow-up. Results from a mixedmodel analysis of variance (ANOVA) with repeated measures indicated that participants in the experimental condition showed greater improvements in their ability to cultivate virtue and resist vice from pretest to posttest compared with those in the wait-list control condition. After all participants completed the intervention, results from a repeated-measures ANOVA indicated that, on average, they showed improvements on all 4 of the outcome variables of virtue, vice, stress, and spiritual development. These gains were maintained at 4-week follow-up. These findings support the efficacy of the current psychospiritual intervention for treating moral spiritual struggles. We discuss the limitations of the study and its implications for research on spiritual struggles; psychospiritual interventions; and virtue, vice, and character education.