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In the Bielefeld-based Cross-cultural Study of Spirituality, every second respondent has self-identified as "more spiritual than religious" (50.9% in the US, 48.8% in Germany). Our data also demonstrate that "spirituality" has become a word widely used by people who do not, or not any more, affiliate with a religious tradition: Every second non-affiliate self-identifies as "more spiritual than religious." This may indicate and corroborate This was one of the results of the Bielefeld-based Cross-cultural Study of Deconversion and detailed in various publications (Streib, Hood, Keller, Silver, & Csoeff, 2009; Streib 2008). the inclination of non-affiliates, deconverts and even atheists, while reluctant identifying with "religion," to give their ultimate concern and their symbolization of transcendence by new name: "spirituality."
The over-representation of "more spiritual" respondents in our data is of great advantage for finding out, what people mean when they say "I am spiritual." Another report of results from the Bielefeld-based Cross-cultural Study of "Spirituality" with focus on the semantics is being published 2013: Keller, B., Klein, C., Swhajor, A., Silver, C. F., Hood, R. W., & Streib, H. (2013). The Semantics of "Spirituality" and Related Self-identifications: A Comparative Study in Germany and the USA. Archive for the Psychology of Religion/Archiv für Religionspsychologie, 35/1. This has been one of the key research questions in our Spirituality Study. An answer to this question can be expected from a comparison of semantic connotations to "spirituality" and "religion." Among other methods we therefore used two semantic differentials for both "religion" and "spirituality." Osgood's (1962) Semantic Differential which offers 18 pairs of opposite adjectives to assess semantic associations in three dimensions, evaluation, potency, and activity. In addition, we have created a Contextual Semantic Differential with 30 descriptive opposite adjectives to assess connotations of "religion" and "spirituality." Both semantic differentials have been used for the assessment of association to both "religion" and "spirituality." A spotlight on the results is presented in the following figure These line figures report the means on the polar adjectives for both "religion" and "spirituality" in each semantic differential. These figures are based on paired t-tests (CI = .95) run separately for the German and the U.S. subsamples. With only a few exceptions, most differences between "religion" and "spirituality" are significant on the p < .001 level for the total US and German samples. .
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With the positive pole of the adjectives placed on the right side, the figure shows general positive and almost no negative associations with "spirituality" in both the US and German total samples, while, for "religion," we see both positive, but also negative associations. "Spirituality" is clearly associated with "nice," "fine," "heavenly," "smooth," "mild" and "clean," while "religion" is rated neutral or associated with "harsh" and "rough" (most clearly in the German subsample).
An even more contrastive pattern emerges from the Contextual Sematic Differential, as presented in the next figure.
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Also here, the "spirituality" line is on the right side: respondents in both cultures note only positive associations - with the only exception that "spirituality" is not "new" and rather "irrational" for the German respondents. Especially the adjectives "flexible," "liberating," "tolerant," "relaxing," "creative," "healing" and "fascinating" stand out as positive associations with "spirituality" in both cultures, while "religion" receives rather strong associations with "inflexible," "intolerant," "rigorous" and "demanding.
Another way of visualizing the results from the semantic differentials are scatter plot figures. They allow more detailed perspectives and thereby visualize cross-cultural differences. In the following figures the (positive pole of the) adjectives of the Osgood Semantic Differential scatter in a space with "religion" and "spirituality" as axes x and y (the intersection of the axes at a mean of 3.0 marks the "neutral" position on a 5-point rating).
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The figures demonstrate - again - that, in general, "spirituality" has highly positive connotations for both the American and German samples. This is indicated by the location of almost all adjectives in the upper half. Correspondingly, in both the US and the German samples, there is no exclusively positive association with "religion" - which is indicated by the fact that no dots are in the lower right segment.
The figures also demonstrate cross-cultural differences between the US and Germany - which is most obvious from Osgood's three factors, evaluation, potency and activity: There is almost no difference in the activity adjectives ("light," "sharp," "hot," etc.). "Spirituality" and "religion" also share high attributions of potency ("powerful," "big," "strong," "long," etc.) in both the American and German samples. However, positive connotations in terms of potency are more profiled for the US sample, which is indicated by dots and thus the potency ellipse located further in the upper right segment. Finally, we see higher exclusively positive evaluation ("fine," "nice," "clean," "smooth," etc.) of "spirituality" and, at the same time, more negative evaluation of "religion" by the German respondents, which is indicated by the location of most of the evaluation adjectives and thus the evaluation ellipse in upper left field. This cross-cultural sematic difference is primarily due to the more negative evaluation of "religion" by the part of German respondents.
The analyses so far are based on the total US and German subsamples. Attending however to the semantic differential analyses for the focusgroups (see presentation of focusgroup construction), the picture gets more differentiated as demonstrated in the next figure, which is based on Analyses of Variance (ANOVAs) using the means for the principal factors of the Osgood Semantic Differentials as dependent variables.
As one may expect, the "equally religious and spiritual" (FG 2), but also the "more religious than spiritual" (FG 1) respondents in both countries do not see much difference between "religion" and "spirituality," but rate both "religion" and "spirituality" rather positively. In contrast, the "more spiritual than religious" respondents (FG 3), in particular the "more spiritual than religious atheists/non-theists" (FG 4) in the US, display the greatest semantic difference between "religion" (for which evaluation is very negative) and "spirituality" (for which evaluation is positive); but interestingly, there is less or marginal difference between "religion" and "spirituality" in the potency and activity factors.
This is a glimpse in our results on the semantics of "spirituality." Of course, there is more to be published in articles and books. This website will post new publications.
Keller, Barbara, Klein, Constantin, Anne, Swhajor, Christopher F., Silver, Ralph W., Hood, and Streib, Heinz. "The Semantics of 'Spirituality' and Related Self-identifications: A Comparative Study in Germany and the USA". Archive for the Psychology of Religion [Abstract; Pre-Print].
Streib, H. (2008). More Spiritual than Religious: Changes in the Religious Field Require New Approaches [pdf]
Streib, Heinz & Hood, Ralph W. (2011). “"Spirituality" as Privatized Experience-Oriented Religion: Empirical and Conceptual Perspectives”. Implicit Religion 14.4: 433 - 453. Pdf
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