New Model and Measurement of Spirituality

Abstract

The current study presented a novel, integrated model and measure of spirituality based on the notion that religion and spirituality should be construed as partners (Schneiders, 2003). The measure was developed within the structure of George Kelly's (1955) Personal Construct Theory and participants completed two repertory grids. In the first grid, participants generated constructs through a sentence completion task and then rated themselves and Jesus on each construct. In the second grid, participants rated how strongly they agreed with either eight doctrines of traditional Christianity related to Jesus or with views that reflected their opposite. Standardized Euclidian distances were then calculated to ascertain the distance between self and Jesus on both grids. These scores were then analyzed to attempt to discriminate between laity and ministers and Christians and non-Christians. Analyses revealed Grid 1 was able to differentiate between ministers and laity, and Grid 2 was able to differentiate between Christians and non-Christians. The results suggest that those who are more spiritual show greater levels of integration between religion and spirituality than those who are less spiritual. This study provides support for the notion that religion and spirituality should be viewed as partners.