Religion and Spirituality in Psychiatry

Personality, Spirituality, Religiousness, and the Personality Disorders 179operationalize these two constructs in a mannerthat would solidly ground them in mainstreampsychological theory and measurement, I createdthe Assessment of Spirituality and ReligiousSentiments (ASPIRES) (27) scale. In this measure,there is a single broad dimension that capturesthe spirituality domain and two scales that assessthe religiousness domain. Each will be discussedin turn.In the ASPIRES, spirituality was defined asan intrinsic motivation of individuals to createa broad sense of personal meaning within aneschatological context. In other words, knowingthat we are going to die, spirituality representsour efforts to create meaning and purpose for ourlives. This need for meaning is seen as an intrinsic,universal human capacity.(25) The scale assessingspirituality is named the Spiritual TranscendenceScale (STS). The STS was developed to capturethose aspects of spirituality that cut across all religioustraditions (see Piedmont (27) for how thisscale was developed). This unidimensional scalecontains three correlated facets: Universality , abelief in the unity and purpose of life; PrayerFulfillment, an experienced feeling of joy and contentmentthat results from prayer and/or meditation;and Connectedness a sense of personalresponsibility and connection to others.In contrast to spirituality, religiousness is notconsidered to be an intrinsic, motivational construct.Rather, it is considered to represent a sentiment. Sentiment is an old term in psychology andreflects emotional tendencies that develop out ofsocial traditions and educational experiences.(28)Sentiments can exert a powerful influence overthoughts and behaviors, but they do not representinnate, genotypic qualities like spirituality. Thatis why the expression of sentiments (for example,religious practices) can and does vary over timeand across cultures. There are two measures ofreligious sentiments on the ASPIRES. The firstis the Religiosity Index (RI). The RI examines thefrequency of involvement in religious rituals andpractices (for example, how often does one pray,how often does one attend religious services). Italso queries the extent to which religious practicesand involvements are important. ReligiousCrisis (RC) is the second measure and examinesthe extent to which an individual feels alienated,punished, or abandoned by God (for example, Ifeel that God is punishing me). What is of interestabout these items is that they address the negativeside of religiousness, when faith and beliefbecome sources of personal and social distress.This scale enables an examination of the extent towhich disturbances in one’s relationship to Godcan affect one’s broader sense of psychologicalstability.The five ASPIRES scales (the three facet scalesof the STS plus the two religious sentimentsscales) provide a relatively comprehensive assessmentof the numinous dimension. Compared tomost measures in this field, the ASPIRES has arather large and comprehensive body of validityevidence. The increasing popularity of theASPIRES can be attributed to its ability to addresscritical empirical questions about the utilityof any measure of spirituality or religiousness.The next section will outline the four key validityissues and why the ASPIRES is an importantmeasure for understanding normal and clinicalaspects of psychological functioning.5. FOUR KEY VALIDITY ISSUESFOR THE ASPIRESPerhaps the single most important question tobe asked of any measure of spirituality and religiousnessis whether the construct representssomething unique about the individual. Criticsof spiritual research are concerned that numinousconstructs are only the “parasitization” ofalready existing personality variables.(29) To beof value, measures of the numinous need to demonstratethat they capture nonredundant aspectsof the individual and therefore provide insightsinto functioning that are missed by current psychologicalconstructs. A number of studies havejointly factor-analyzed the ASPIRES scales alongwith measures of the FFM and have consistentlyshown that the two sets of constructs are mutuallyindependent.(24, 30) Thus, spirituality canbe argued to represent the sixth major personalitydomain.(24)