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

Michael F. Steger · Erica J. Adams · Joo Yeon Shin · Bryan J. Dik · Nick Stauner

55 citations0/0 files storedPsychology of Religion and Spirituality

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Religion, Spirituality, and Psychology Religion and Society Interactions Psychological Well-being and Life Satisfaction

Abstract

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 nonEvangelical 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.

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References

1985The Satisfaction With Life Scale 2002Evaluating Goodness-of-Fit Indexes for Testing Measurement Invariance 1968Identity : Youth and Crisis. 1968 1999Subjective well-being: Three decades of progress.2006The meaning in life questionnaire: Assessing the presence of and search for meaning in life.1989Testing for the equivalence of factor covariance and mean structures: The issue of partial measurement invariance.2009Review of the Satisfaction With Life Scale 1971Man's search for meaning; an introduction to logotherapy

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