Faith Development
Longitudinal Study of Faith Development in Germany and the USA
Publikationen
Streib, H., & Chen, Z. (2026). Styles of faith. Introduction into faith development theory and research. Brill. https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004754171
Chen, Z. J., & Streib, H. (under review). What predicts faith development? A longitudinal analysis with faith development interviews. (pre-print: https://osf.io/preprints/psyarxiv/27mbw_v2)
Streib, H. (2025). Outcomes of Faith Style Development. FINAL REPORT on the DFG-funded project STR 570/22-1. https://osf.io/ap79e/files/w2bg6
Streib, H., & Hood, R. W., Jr. (Eds.). (2024). Faith in development. Mixed-method studies on worldviews and religious styles. Bielefeld University Press. https://doi.org/10.14361/978383947123
Streib, H., Chen, Z. J., & Hood, R. W. (2023). Faith development as change in religious types: Results from three-wave longitudinal data with faith development interviews. Psychology of Religion and Spirituality 15(2), 298-307. https://doi.org/10.1037/rel0000440 (post-print at: https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/qrcb2)
Streib, H., Chen, Z. J., & Hood, R. W. (2020). Categorizing people by their preference for religious styles: Four types derived from evaluation of faith development interviews. International Journal for the Psychology of Religion, 30(2), 112-127. https://doi.org/10.1080/10508619.2019.1664213 (post-print at: https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/d3kbr)
Summary
For 20 years, the development of religion and worldview in the adult lifespan has been the focus of longitudinal investigation at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga (USA) and Bielefeld University (Germany). Grants from the John Templeton Foundation (JTF) and the German Research Foundation (DFG) enabled the research teams at Bielefeld University and the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga to conduct longitudinal investigation of faith development until 2024.
Now, faith development research is based on a new level: Based on more than 1,500 faith development interviews (FDI) and more than 6,600 questionnaire data from two decades, and more than a third of the FDI participants being re-interviewees. This database is a solid base for qualitatively and quantitatively documenting how faith and worldview in terms faith styles develop, what motivates such development, and what faith development may lead to, especially in terms of representations of transcendence, prejudice reduction, and openness for dialog.
Central questions
The question that this project has the potential to answer is whether, how, why, and when in their lifetime individuals are changing their religion and worldview. We interpret such changes as migrations between hierarchically ordered religious styles/types (Streib et al., 2020). Based on the data of our third wave of field word, we could demonstrate that there is faith development; and we could initially identify predictors and outcomes (Streib et al., 2023). The final project (2022-2024) had a focus on two particularly interesting outcomes of faith development: (a) changes in people’s images of God and, in more general and inclusive terms: their symbolization of transcendence; and (b) their changes in prejudice and xenophobia. We assume that faith development results in narrative identity that affords a wise and humble response to the strange that we call xenosophia¹.
Results are described in the Final Report to the DFG (Streib, 2025), a journal article (Chen & Streib, under review) and a book chapter in by Streib and Chen (2026). Results culminate in these findings: High scores on the personality trait of openness to experience, low agreement to religious beliefs (truth of texts and teachings) and low religious praxis (frequency of prayer) emerged as the most robust predictors for progression in faith development. That lower religiosity predicts higher faith development seems paradoxical, which we understand as clear indication and confirmation of a conceptual difference between religion and faith (faith is thereby defined as ‘ultimate concern’ in accord with P. Tillich). About the focus of this last project, namely on the outcomes of faith development, the results point toward cognitive characteristics (increase in the joy of thinking/need for cognition, tolerance of ambiguity, and intellectual humility), low religious fundamentalist beliefs such as an authoritarian image of God, and the reduction of prejudice and xenophobia.
Method
Religious development is being studied using the faith development interview that James Fowler has introduced in the 1970s. The fully transcribed interviews are coded using our latest version of the Manual for the Assessment of Religious Styles.
All faith development interview participants were invited to fill out a questionnaire that included, besides comprehensive demographics, a number of scales e.g., about personality, religious schemata, centrality of religiosity, fundamentalism, pluralism, images of God, mystical experiences, intolerance of ambiguity, generativity, or psychological well-being and growth. Our last questionnaire included also measures for intellectual humility, God images, and questions for xenophobia and other prejudice. Thus, we are able to relate the question of religious change to the psychological investigation in domains such as wisdom, God images, and prejudice.
- ¹Xenosophia
¹Xenosophia
Xenosophia describes a process that does not shield itself against the challenge and demand of the other/alien, but encounters the other with responsiveness and an openness for the unexpected. Xenosophia therefore is the kind of wisdom that constitutes paths of development contrary to the increasing othering in our world.