Symposium S2

Present Perceptions of Spirituality - an empirical Danish Investigation

Peter la Cour
Background: The word "spirituality" is a very frequently used concept in modern psychology of religion. However, it is quite clear that there is no common understanding of what this term stands for, and no common definition. It might even be the case that the term has different meanings in different countries and cultures. Thus, for example in the United States the concept can be opposed to the concept of religiosity (eg "I am spiritual but not religious") while in Catholic countries, the term is often understood as the "inner" side of the ordinary religious life. In Lutheran Denmark, the concept might mainly to be related to alternative environments and alternative medicine. We wanted to find the common understandings of the term spirituality in our country, Denmark.
Method and material: A broad and systematic collected list of known definitions of "spirituality" was formed, and 15 strategically selected informants were asked to freely express what they associated with the word spirituality. The resulting lists of 115 items were placed in alphabetical order (content-random order) in a final questionnaire. 415 Danes were asked to mark the meanings of the word spirituality for them as private persons (eg, mystery, holiness, alternative, harmony, etc).
Results: Answers to the questionnaire were processed with statistical cluster analysis. A four factor structure was evident, suggesting four distinct understandings of spirituality in Denmark: 1. Something very positive connected with attractive feelings and well-being, 2. New Age-ideology, 3. Non-religious, deep feelings, 4. Something negative and self-centered. Statistical analysis has not yet finished.
Follow-up: We are planning in similar ways to investigate the common meanings of the concepts of "religiosity" and "secular." We hopefully invite colleagues from other countries to make similar research for international comparison.

Spirituality and Religion - Convergences and Divergences in Beliefs, Practices and Experiences. Analysis on the Basis of the worldwide Religion Monitor

Constantin Klein

In the social sciences changes in the religious sphere have traditionally been described in terms of secularization (e. g. Weber, 1917), privatization (e. g. Luckmann, 1967), and pluralization (e. g. Berger, 1980). In recent years, a growing number of scholars have also postulated a replacement of traditional religiosity by forms of personal spirituality (Knoblauch, 2009), a process which has been described, for instance, as "spiritual turn" (Houtman & Aupers, 2007) or as "spiritual revolution" (Heelas & Woodhead, 2005).

Research on subjective meanings and correlates of a self-attribution as being "spiritual", however, shows that the majority of people express their spirituality in continuity with their religiosity (e. g. Marler & Hadaway, 2002; Zinnbauer et al., 1997). Thus, the question arises whether being "spiritual" expresses anything else than being "religious" or whether spirituality is merely a synonym for religiosity. To answer this question it is necessary to investigate which experiences and behavior (beliefs, practices, emotions, affiliations etc.) relate to the self-attributions as spiritual or religious, respectively.

To shed some light on the diverse meanings of spirituality and religiosity, we have used the data of the worldwide Religion Monitor survey (Bertelsmann Foundation 2007, 2009) including representative datasets for 21 countries and have compared patterns of expressions of spirituality and religiosity. We found that in most countries a majority of people express their spirituality converging with their religiosity. The percentage of people without religious affiliation who call themselves spiritual (but not religious) differs strongly between cultures and seems to be a particular phenomenon of the western world. A comparison of people who can be classified either as exclusively spiritual, exclusively religious, both spiritual and religious or neither nor shows that the behavioral and experiential patterns of those considered as exclusively spiritual resemble strongly those who have been identified as neither religious nor spiritual, except that the former perform significant more meditation practices. The most intensive experiences and behavior, however, could be found among the group of the both spiritual and religious people.

Discussion