Faith development as change in religious types: Results from three-wave longitudinal data with faith development interviews.

Abstract

Faith, as a way of how people understand God and the world and make or discover meaning in their life, is characterized by individual differences and changes over the lifetime. Our research investigates these changes over the lifespan in terms of hierarchically ordered types that are the elements in our developmental model, which is a critical advancement and modification of Fowler's theory of faith development. This study is the first to investigate whether there is development in faith over the adult lifespan and to identify predictors of developmental change. Our mixed-method design used three-wave longitudinal data (mean lag time 10.47 years from Wave 1 to Wave 3). A sample of N = 75 participants were interviewed with the faith development interview three times and each time answered comprehensive questionnaires. Results evidenced faith development over the lifespan: a majority in our data moved to a higher type, while change to a lower type did occur. Openness to experience and the religious schema truth of text and teachings were potential antecedents for faith development.

Transactional effects between personality and religiosity.

“…Consistent with cross-sectional research, these studies found that baseline levels of agreeableness, conscientiousness, and/or openness predicted individual differences in changes in religiosity when controlling for prior levels of religiosity. Specifically, higher levels of these traits in adolescence or early adulthood relative to other people predicted greater relative increases in religiosity over time (Gebauer et al, 2014; McCullough et al, 2005; Streib et al, 2021). Although these studies indicated that personality traits predict changes in religiosity, design restrictions limited their conclusions about change in religiosity and precluded an examination of reciprocal effects between personality and religiosity.…”