The quest for meaning: Religious affiliation differences in the correlates of religious quest and search for meaning in life

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NSTL
Educational Publishing Foundation-American Psychological Assoc

外文摘要：Religious traditions are considered to provide their members with a way to integrate their experiences into a coherent, comprehensible whole; functioning as a meaning system. Given that religious traditions vary in certain ways, the meaning systems they provide to their members might also differ from one another. The present study was concerned with whether seeking existential meaning in religion and life is compatible with other expressions of religiousness across denominations. Using a multigroups application of path analysis, we investigated whether the relations of two forms of existential seeking, secular (search for meaning in life) and sacred (religious quest), with several religious and psychological well-being measures differed as a function of denomination in a sample of Catholic and Protestant young adults (Study 1; N = 284) and a sample of Catholic, Evangelical, and Non-Evangelical Protestant young adults (Study 2; N = 454). Although comparisons across studies are difficult because the "Protestant" category in Study 1 could have included both Evangelical and non-Evangelical Protestants, one consistent pattern did emerge: there were no denomination-based differences in any of the relations of search for meaning with any of the religiousness variables in either study. Also, in both studies, Catholics demonstrated a positive relation of search for meaning with religious quest and negative relations of search for meaning with presence of meaning in life and overall religiousness. Results for religious quest appeared unstable across studies, raising possible questions about its measurement qualities. Implications for the study of cultural and existential factors and religion are discussed.

外文关键词：

religious affiliationreligious questreligiousnesssearch for meaning

作者：

Shin, J.Y.、Stauner, N.、Dik, B.J.、Steger, M.F.、Pickering, N.K.、Adams, E.、Burnett, J.

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作者单位：

Colorado State University, Department of Psychology, 1876 Campus Delivery, Fort Collins, CO 80523-1876, United States

Department of Psychology, University of California, Riverside, United States

Department of Educational and Counseling Psychology, University of Louisville, Riverside, United States

出版年：

2010

DOI：

10.1037/a0019122

Psychology of religion and spirituality

AHCI

ISSN：1941-1022

年,卷(期)：2010.2(4)

被引量4
参考文献量66