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Institutional Religion, Spirituality and Moral Opinion: Bound or Detached? Manuel Canteras University of Murcia, Spain Lluis Oviedo Antonianum University, Rome, Italy Abstract Scholars have long debated to what extent spiritual perception is related to institu- tional or traditional religion, and how much both categories are linked to moral val- ues. Defining the concept of spirituality already becomes a challenge, as it is ap- plied too broadly. Different theories have been proposed to describe the relation between the three concepts. Recent behavioral and cognitive approaches claim that the adaptability of religious practice is linked to collaborative behavior. In an at- tempt to gain greater insight into the disputed questions, recent results of the Euro- pean Values Survey are examined, and a questionnaire was designed with the aim of quantifying levels of spirituality, moral values, and religious practice. The ques- tionnaire was distributed among students between the ages of 15 and 25 in three different countries (total N= 708). After applying factor analysis the results indicate a distinction between the three realms religious, spiritual and moral in secular- ized societies and young cohorts, and support the hypothesis that the possible link between religion and morality is the result of later efforts in some post-Axial reli- gious traditions. Keywords: spirituality, morality, adolescence religion, cognitive study of religion The scientific study of religion will gain greater insight and reach higher scientific standards the more it manages to clarify concepts, to dis- tinguish related terms and to specify levels of relatedness. As an example, students of religion take part in discussions on the distinction and relation- ship between concepts such as religion and spirituality. Another issue at stake is whether or not a convergence exists between religious beliefs and moral values or ideas. We could indeed point to a three-part complex that includes institutional religion, personal spirituality and morality. Our con- viction is that clarification of these concepts depends not only on theoretical endeavor, but also on the effective distinction in the empirical realm. In other words, it would be useless to attempt a distinction that does not oper- ate in the empirical field; by the same token, it would be misleading to as- sociate concepts, when in the real world they can be clearly distinguished.
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Institutional Religion, Spirituality and Moral Opinion:

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Page 1: Institutional Religion, Spirituality and Moral Opinion:

Institutional Religion, Spirituality and Moral Opinion:

Bound or Detached?

Manuel Canteras

University of Murcia, Spain

Lluis Oviedo

Antonianum University, Rome, Italy

Abstract

Scholars have long debated to what extent spiritual perception is related to institu-

tional or traditional religion, and how much both categories are linked to moral val-

ues. Defining the concept of spirituality already becomes a challenge, as it is ap-

plied too broadly. Different theories have been proposed to describe the relation

between the three concepts. Recent behavioral and cognitive approaches claim that

the adaptability of religious practice is linked to collaborative behavior. In an at-

tempt to gain greater insight into the disputed questions, recent results of the Euro-

pean Values Survey are examined, and a questionnaire was designed with the aim

of quantifying levels of spirituality, moral values, and religious practice. The ques-

tionnaire was distributed among students between the ages of 15 and 25 in three

different countries (total N= 708). After applying factor analysis the results indicate

a distinction between the three realms – religious, spiritual and moral – in secular-

ized societies and young cohorts, and support the hypothesis that the possible link

between religion and morality is the result of later efforts in some post-Axial reli-

gious traditions.

Keywords: spirituality, morality, adolescence religion, cognitive study of religion

The scientific study of religion will gain greater insight and reach

higher scientific standards the more it manages to clarify concepts, to dis-

tinguish related terms and to specify levels of relatedness. As an example,

students of religion take part in discussions on the distinction and relation-

ship between concepts such as religion and spirituality. Another issue at

stake is whether or not a convergence exists between religious beliefs and

moral values or ideas. We could indeed point to a three-part complex that

includes institutional religion, personal spirituality and morality. Our con-

viction is that clarification of these concepts depends not only on theoretical

endeavor, but also on the effective distinction in the empirical realm. In

other words, it would be useless to attempt a distinction that does not oper-

ate in the empirical field; by the same token, it would be misleading to as-

sociate concepts, when in the real world they can be clearly distinguished.

Page 2: Institutional Religion, Spirituality and Moral Opinion:

2 Manuel Canteras and Lluis Oviedo

First, the distinction between religion and spirituality deserves a more care-

ful assessment. Some analysts point to the difficulty and limited heuristic

use of such a distinction (Hill, Pargament et al., 2000; Musick, Traphagan,

Koenig &Larson, 2000; Hill & Pargament, 2003; Miller & Thoresen,

2003). In many cases both entities – religion and spirituality – overlap and

are hard to distinguish. One attempt goes as follows:

Thus, one is witnessing, particularly in the United States, a polarization of re-

ligiousness and spirituality, with the former representing an institutional, for-

mal, outward, doctrinal, authoritarian, inhibiting expression and the latter rep-

resenting an individual, subjective, emotional, inward, unsystematic, freeing

expression (Hill & Pargament, 2003, 64)

This distinction seems rather conventional, and even less settled after

scientific testing. Recent research tries to take a more nuanced approach,

and to test the heuristic value of “spirituality” as a distinctive dimension

(Piedmont & Leach, 2002;Wink and Dillon, 2002; Roof, 2003; Giordan,

2007; Marler & Hadaway, 2002; De Souza, Engebretson et al., 2007;

Schlehofer, Omoto & Adelman, 2008). Nevertheless, it is worth maintain-

ing the difference in order to measure in what circumstances and to what

extent it applies. This is not a question of ordering our conceptual toolkit,

but of showing to what extent the newly acquired tools are useful and may

be applied to real behaviors and aptitudes.

Some attempts have been made to improve the instruments capable of

testing levels of spirituality as a distinctive dimension or experience1. The

“Spiritual Transcendence Index” (Seidlitz et al., 2002) and the “Spiritual

Transcendence Scale” (Piedmont, 2001) offer good examples – among

many others1 – of this effort at clarifying, and provides reliable tools to bet-

ter define the contours of such a vague label. Self-transcendence seems to

be the other name for spirituality, as a supposed variable to be isolated and

specified in some studies on personality and health (Kirk, Eaves and Mar-

tin, 1999). It is indeed obvious that personality traits are deeply involved in

the ability or aptitude to transcend empirical reality or to project new hori-

zons of meaning; research in that field is therefore amply justified

(Saroglou and Muñoz-García, 2008; Piedmont, Ciarrochi, et. al. 2009).

Available practices already deliver a sense of what “spiritual” may

mean. The 12 steps culture of “Alcoholics Anonymous” inspires a view

1 There are several published attempts at identifying and quantifying levels of spirituali-

ty distinct from standard or institutional religiosity, see: Genia (1991); Hall and Edwards

(2002). For a complete list see the web page of “Search Institute” devoted to “measures

of Spirituality” (opened 19.02.2011):

http://www.search-institute.org/csd/measures/spirituality#expressions

Page 3: Institutional Religion, Spirituality and Moral Opinion:

Institutional Religion, Spirituality and Moral Opinion 3

stressing “relationship or surrender to a higher power”, as a distinctive trait

(Neff, 2008). The sense of “the sacredness of life” should be taken into ac-

count in that spiritual cluster as well. However the scale developed for

Neff’s study resorts to an explicit God concept, which appears too close to

currently accepted measures of religiousness.

An alternative approach tries to identify spiritual perception with some

sense of order and purpose: “spiritualism refers to the idea that one’s life

fits within a larger cosmic order or purpose” (Peterson and Seligman, 2004

qtd. in Rossano, 2008, 184). A similar version states that “spirituality repre-

sents our efforts to create meaning and purpose for our lives” in the aware-

ness of a limited existence (Piedmont, 2009, 163). Another term associated

with the semantics of spirituality is “inwardness” (Tacey, 2007). Deep

awareness of one’s own self and concern for or openness to others appear

as somehow contradictory traits applied to some descriptions of spirituality

(Neff, 2008). In these cases, the description seems too fuzzy, and the issue

becomes problematic since spirituality turns out to be linked to “invisible”

or “implicit” religion, which, in the end, is simply identified with the ability

to project some purpose or meaning onto one’s own life. Excessive inflation

of the term and, as a consequence, an inability to distinguish it from secular

or immanent expressions would render it ineffectual for scientific aims.

Perhaps the research confronts the very essence of “spirituality”, which, by

its own nature, becomes fuzzy and indeterminate and therefore very unsta-

ble and hard to fit into a useful pattern. Nevertheless, an alternative defini-

tion is: “Spirituality is how you are religious”, which could appear as less

fuzzy, even if the subjective emphasis poses similar challenges at specify-

ing its content.

A survey of the existing literature begs for a more nuanced view of

spirituality, if it is still to serve research purposes. In broad terms, spirituali-

ty should be placed somewhere between very explicit religious views (very

close to institutional or traditional religious forms), and fuzzy and secular

views, where any sense of transcendence may be diluted and assimilated

into usual human experiences. Whether such an “intermediate place” be-

tween the two extremes even exists is still to be shown.

The second link studied – with morality – turn out to be even more

disputed. A considerable amount of specialized literature has become avail-

able over the last three decades trying to reveal the specific connections be-

tween religious beliefs and moral values and practices2. An important tradi-

tion of empirical studies explores the thorny issue of the relationship be-

tween religion and pro-social behavior, at least since Batson’s seminal re-

2 See: MacLean, Walker and Matsuba; Rossano (2004), for good accounts of literature

regarding studies on religion and morality

Page 4: Institutional Religion, Spirituality and Moral Opinion:

4 Manuel Canteras and Lluis Oviedo

search (Batson, 1976; Saroglou, Pichon et al., 2005). Our feeling is that we

are still far from reaching an agreement, and the general impression is that a

more nuanced approach should be tried, as such a relationship strongly de-

pends on the kind of religion, and, obviously, on what we understand by

moral values and behavior, and how all these variables may be linked.

One way of relating them is through a third factor, such as personality

– again – (MacLean, Walker & Matsuba, 2004), age or developmental stag-

es, and social conditions. Distinct religious traditions might be relevant as

well or should not be ignored in preference to a generic “religious” ap-

proach. Recent research has tried to assess some of these relationships re-

sorting to the huge amount of data provided by broad European social sur-

veys (Parboteeah, Hoegl & Cullen, 2008). The results show a rather nega-

tive relationship between the variables of religion and ethics when applied

to the economic realm. Education or developmental studies also help to

clarify the issue, adding more factors or relevant variables (Nucci, 2001;

Kunzman, 2003). Contributing to the discussion are studies that highlight

the disruptive effect of religion, especially in its fundamentalist forms, in

the realm of moral judgment and behavior (Sharpe, 2007).

The scientific study of religion has explored several different avenues

and is in the process of testing new hypothesis, rendering this knowledge

more objective, even if some of the results of the tests are negative and

many loose ends persist. Take as an example the seemingly more mature

research on religion and pro-social behavior. Some recent studies point to

ambiguities and a rather weak correlation between the two variables

(Saroglou, Pichon et al., 2005). The empirical research that has been carried

out in this respect offers somewhat inconclusive results or very low levels

of correlation between religious beliefs and moral values.

A slightly different approach points to religion as a kind of “moral en-

forcer” or “motivator”, prompting “expertise through training”, as a recent

proposal goes:

“The fact that nearly all religions link moral conduct with the rewards and

punishments of this life or the next makes them potentially potent moral moti-

vators. This leads to a prediction that, compared to sceptics, the religiously de-

vout are more likely to expend energy monitoring, analyzing, and critiquing

their moral lives, resulting in the elevation of their moral skills.” (Rossano,

2008, 177)

The author of the above paper of Rossano claims that established reli-

gions require some standards of behavior from their followers and provide

“moral expertise”. This view probably applies only to institutionalized

forms of religion, less to individual expressions of spirituality. Whatever

the case, the evidence presented so far as a justification of the link between

Page 5: Institutional Religion, Spirituality and Moral Opinion:

Institutional Religion, Spirituality and Moral Opinion 5

religion and morals is weak, and – as the author recognizes – these links

become very complex in the real world.

It is important to clarify the issue of religion and morality for many

reasons. The first is that a new wave of self-proclaimed scientific studies of

religion, mixing biology and cognitivism, point to a deep link between reli-

gion and moral behavior, as an adaptive explanation of the origins and evo-

lution of religions. In a nutshell, religious ideas and rituals would in one

way or another, function as enforcers of pro-social behavior, or might lend

support to in-group links, or work for mutual engagement. Of course, these

outcomes could often be seen as unintended and obviously unconscious, so

that they could work just as concomitants of religious rituals, emotions and

beliefs, where they play a very different role. In any case, the inputs provid-

ed by religion must represent an adaptive advantage (Sosis & Alcorta,

2003; Bulbulia, 2006; Bering, 2006; Norenzayan, 2008).

A different cognitivist version of the supposed link between religion

and morality is that, despite being distinct cognitive realms, religious ideas

about supernatural agents are built into the existing moral disposition, lead-

ing them to become “moral watchers” or “witnesses” (Boyer, 2001). The

intuitive point is that reckoning with such entities, moral behavior should be

enforced. The theory does not make supernatural agents “useful” for keep-

ing social order, but “parasitic” on moral intuitions.

Binding belief in God and moral attitude is a common trait of post-

Axial religions. This is apparent in most of mature forms of Judaism and

Christianity. Besides, there is clearly a philosophical tradition linking reli-

gion with morality that dates back at least to Kant and the Enlightenment.

This approach builds a strong case for the deep moral identity of every

evolved religion, perhaps one step before its complete secularization. This

tradition can be followed through the liberal theological movement to our

days: religion serving moral causes and interests, morality requiring reli-

gious support to reach its most ambitious goals (Habermas, 2002). An ex-

ample of this inextinguishable tradition is an opinion of Jay S. Gould, who

stated: “I will…construe as essentially religious (literally, binding together)

all moral discourse on principles that might activate the ideal of universal

fellowship among people” (Gould, 1999, 62). In his view, religion collapses

into regulatory social practices, or perhaps normative cognitive patterns, at

the point where cosmic relatedness crosses “universal fellowship”. In this

case it appears that the recent idea of “spirituality” meets the very modern

aspiration of ethical universality.

The quoted literature calls for a new wave of empirical studies to test

in what terms or conditions religious beliefs and practices could really be

linked to moral convictions and behaviors. It is important to distinguish the

Page 6: Institutional Religion, Spirituality and Moral Opinion:

6 Manuel Canteras and Lluis Oviedo

different levels at which this relationship could be stated: biological, cogni-

tive, social, functional, cultural, etc.

Beyond scientific discussion, more contextual issues have arisen in re-

cent years that call for better discernment of the question under review. It is

not clear to what extent we can apply the undifferentiated and broad con-

cept of religion to all religious forms or expressions. It is even more diffi-

cult to state how particular religions relate to the moral standards of a given

culture. As a consequence, talk about “religion” in general, and unspecified

morality should be much more focused and nuanced, in order to avoid some

shortcomings. Once again, problems of fuzziness threaten the soundness of

research projects in this field

The present paper tries to shed some more light on this messy field,

and aims to better address the discussion for further research. To this end

we provide more empirical evidence to test the degree of relatedness of the

three selected concepts – religion, spirituality and morality – and the condi-

tions of more or less mutual implication.

The theoretical development registered until now offers a rather plural-

istic panorama. Nevertheless it allows the formulation of four hypotheses:

Religiosity will be associated in Western societies with the institutional

expression of religion, and spirituality with the more personal and free

expression.

Despite frequent overlapping between both dimensions, some specific

features of spirituality can be described.

There will not be any substantial links found between religion,

sprirituality and morality.

Institutional world religions, like Christianity, will be more associated

with moral behavior than generic spirituality.

To test these hypotheses, the present study offers – first – an explorato-

ry approach analyzing data from the European Social Survey (third run,

ESS 2006) and the Bertelsmann Foundation Religion Monitor 2008, which

could help to clarify part of the ideas in that context. The main body of the

research consists of an original survey conducted mostly among teenagers

from three different countries, with a with a questionnaire devised by the

authors in which traits of “spirituality” and “morality”, and some indicators

of religious practice are gathered. The analysis of this data will add a new

piece to this complex puzzle, and help to discern the identity of religious

and spiritual insights, at least for the selected age group.

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Institutional Religion, Spirituality and Moral Opinion 7

1. First Approach: Analyzing an Extensive European Survey

Given that our purpose is to clarify, it is useful to explore some availa-

ble data provided by the large surveys promoted by European institutions of

social research. The European Social Survey completed its third round in

2006, reaching around 45,000 participants in about twenty countries.

The method consists of identifying relevant variables that could be re-

lated to the three dimensions studied, and then to verify, resorting to corre-

lation analysis, their mutual links.

In the standardized questionnaire there are three variables clearly relat-

ed to levels of religiosity: self-assessment of religious commitment, fre-

quency of prayer, and frequency of attendance of religious rites. A first

noteworthy outcome is that these three variables are highly correlated (R =

0.6). A possible reading of this data is that the last variable could be more

related to institutional religiosity, while the other two could be more ambiv-

alent: a person can consider him/herself as religious or pray daily, despite

having no links with any church or religious institution. The fact that a high

correlation exists between the variables means that there is no much room

left, in the European environment, for a distinct spiritual sense at the mar-

gins of institutional religion. The other measure adopted consisted of cross-

tabulating the descriptive of both variables: the mean of “How religious are

you?” (1-10); and “How often do you attend religious services apart from

special occasions?” The result clearly shows a very low mean of religiosity

for the cluster of those who never attend these services (2.63 out of 10),

compared with 8.33 of those attending on a daily basis. Probably there is a

minority of people who could still be considered “spiritual”: those deeming

themselves religious, but not attending religious services. Looking again at

these figures, only 10.6% of those never attending services rated their level

of religiosity above 7 (about 3% of all surveyed population). In short, the

evidence runs against the idea of a kind of growing “religiosity” apart from

institutionalized religion. Obviously, the question should be complemented

with another such as “How spiritual are you?” in order to test the idea of a

different kind of religiosity.

Looking for an explicit indicator of spirituality distinct from institu-

tional religion, the only recent empirical research providing such data is the

Bertelsmann Foundation “Religion Monitor 2008”. One of the items of this

questionnaire is formulated as follows: “Putting aside whether or not you

would describe yourself as a religious person, how spiritual would you say

you are?” Another item measures “religiosity” in this terms: “All in all,

how religious would you consider yourself to be? This Monitor gathers data

from 21 Countries around the world, 8 of them from Europe. The correla-

tion between both items is very high for the European sample (N = 7690; R

Page 8: Institutional Religion, Spirituality and Moral Opinion:

8 Manuel Canteras and Lluis Oviedo

= 0,529; p < .0005), and even higher for the total sample of countries (N =

20099; R = 0,547; p < .0005). However, the first question means not neces-

sarily to be “spiritual but not religious”; it may mean, “how intrinsically re-

ligious are you?”

Following a different path, if we take into account the eight European

countries of the survey, amongst those who never attend religious services

but nevertheless feel they are “quite” or “very spiritual” there are only 15,5

%; this adds up to 4,1 % of all the population of the sample for these coun-

tries, rather a minority.

These results may be considered significant for our research. From the

collected data it is hard to distinguish in practice between religiosity and

spirituality, except in the case where we assume that the “spiritual trend”

represents a minority of the surveyed population in Western countries. In

any case, from this data, it would seem excessive to conclude that “tradi-

tional forms of religion, particularly Christianity, are giving way to holistic

spirituality” (Heelas, Woodhead, et al., 2005, x). The new evidence goes

rather in line with the projections made by David Voas (2009) and what he

terms “fuzzy fidelity”, as a de-institutionalized form of residual religiosity,

nevertheless of precarious statute and destined to disappear in the long run.

The second point to be made follows from correlating indicators of re-

ligiosity and those that could be related to pro-social behavior. A couple of

them had been identified: considering it important to help other people

(subjective meaning); and involvement in voluntary or charitable organiza-

tions (objective). In this case the correlations are very low, and show a

strong independence between the variables: religiosity and pro-social be-

havior.

Table 1. Pearson Correlations among selected variables. ESS 3 Round 2006.

N= 39912

Pray Attend Help-

care

Voluntary

Work

How religious are you -0.675 -0.609 -0.108 -0.079

How often pray apart from at re-

ligious services 0.643 0.118 0.070

How often attend religious ser-

vices apart from special occasions 0.083 0.116

Important to help people and care

for others well-being 0.119

Involved in work for voluntary or

charitable organizations, how of-

ten past 12 months

Note: all the correlations are significant at p < .00005

Page 9: Institutional Religion, Spirituality and Moral Opinion:

Institutional Religion, Spirituality and Moral Opinion 9

Table 2. Cross tabulation of averages of “How religious are you” (1-10) and

“How often attend religious services apart from special occasions” ESS 3

Round 2006

Every

day

+ than

once a week

Once a

week

At least

once a month

Only on

special holy days

Less of-

ten

Never Total

Median 9.16 8.67 7.69 6.73 5.27 4.73 1.92 5.02

Average 8.33 8.37 7.49 6.63 5.25 4.51 2.63 4.75

Minimum 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00

Maximum 10.00 10.00 10.00 10.00 10.00 10.00 10.00 10.00

Stand. dev. 2.29 1.77 1.81 1.80 2.15 2.38 2.69 2.93

Sum 2,557 10,469 36,611 28,759 45,772 40,420 36,472 201,060

Count 307 1,251 4,887 4,340 8,711 8,953 13,882 42,331

The calculus of multiple regression on these variables does not reveal

any different pattern: the three indicators of religiosity are highly related

among them by percentiles close to 50%, while the other two items, indica-

tors respectively of helping behavior and involvement in charities, give

very low coefficients, explaining only about 3% of the variance.

Table 3: Table of coefficients of multiple correlation (R), of percentage of ex-

planation (100.R2) and standardized coefficients of multiple regression among

items of religiosity, helping behavior and charity work involvement; ESS 3

Round 2006. N= 39912

Depend.V. R % e-

xplan.

How

religious

Pray Attend rel.

services

Help

people

Involved

work

How reli-gious

0,713 50,8% -0,480 -0,296 -0,028 -0,007

Pray 0,737 54,3% -0,446 0,370 0,041 -0,013

Attend reli-gious services

0,688 47,4% -0,317 0,426 -0,006 0,062

Help people 0,173 3,0% -0,054 0,087 -0,012 0,114 Involved work

0,163 2,7% -0,015 -0,028 0,115 0,114

Note: All the figures in bold are significant at p < .00005

In our view, the evidence points to a lack of relationship between vari-

ables of religiosity and pro-sociality, an outcome that already throws doubt

on the theories maintaining a concomitance of religion and pro-social atti-

tudes. Nevertheless, morality may be identified with other fields or norms

that are harder to quantify through reliable indicators; however, this result

Page 10: Institutional Religion, Spirituality and Moral Opinion:

10 Manuel Canteras and Lluis Oviedo

implies that the burden of proof is on the side of the proponents of that the-

ory, who should provide more empirical evidence to make their case.

2. Second Approach: Testing an International Sample of Young People

2.1. Method and Data Collection

The second step in the present research consists of collecting new data

to clarify more thoroughly the relationship between the three studied factors

in a sample of young students. The research aims to first assess the levels of

spirituality apart from institutional practice; secondly to measure the moral

and pro-social sensibility of that population; and thirdly to test the extent to

which these three variables are related.

Special importance was given to formulating the questionnaire, which

contains 40 items, stating opinions or popular expressions of social and

moral content, and broadly perceived experiences of transcendence. The

participants in the survey were requested to express on a Lickert-like scale

(of 6 degrees) higher or lower levels of agreement with the proposed state-

ments. Four questions addressed levels of attendance at religious rites, per-

sonal prayer, and self-assessment of belief and religious practice. Further-

more, the questionnaire requested the demographic data of gender and age.

The formulation of the spiritually related sentences was approached

with particular sensitivity. After exploring the available scales of spirituali-

ty or self-transcendence (Kirk, Eaves and Martin, 1999; Seidlitz, Abernethy

et al., 2002), the team decided to build several sentences indicating spiritual

ideas or feelings. To render the expressions more “neutral”, the first self-

imposed condition was to avoid the word “god” in all the questions; sec-

ondly, to go beyond confessional expressions of faith, pointing to general

experiences or perceptions which could be easily identified by the sampled

people (most of them teenagers), as revealing some kind of transcendence,

even in a fuzzy way. Another condition was to use easy popular expressions

that could identify behavior or convictions of that age and sub-culture.

[Questionnaire and tables of the factor analysis are available at:

http://www.academia.edu/2968849/Questionnaire_on_Institutional_Religio

n_Spirituality_and_Moral_Opinion ]

Below we list the selected items of the questionnaire revealing tran-

scendence or general spiritual feelings:

In this world, there is more than what can just be seen and felt

Human beings have both a material and a spiritual component

The soul is immortal

A human being is just a physical entity (-)

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Institutional Religion, Spirituality and Moral Opinion 11

Emotions and feelings are just physic-chemical reactions (-)

A mysterious force in the cosmos guides us towards the good

I sometimes perceive the dark side of reality that leads to evil

I deem myself a spiritual person, even if I do not attend religious ser-

vices

Meditation and deep silence give me inner peace

When I look at some landscapes I feel there is something transcendent

Living beings are connected in a mysterious way

(The appendix contains the complete questionnaire)

As can be appreciated, two of the questions express in a rather negative

way spiritual perceptions – or lack of them. Note that “spiritual” in this

questionnaire relates to several things: a sense of generic transcendence felt

before nature and living beings; the presence of a “spiritual dimension” in

human beings, which could survive beyond this life; the influence of myste-

rious forces – positive or negative – weighing on human action; and even

the practice of some kind of meditation. We avoided questions revealing

broader or fuzzier meanings of spirituality, like “I perceive there is a pur-

pose or meaning to my life”, as – in our view – such a perception does not

entail a minimum level of transcendence. These 11 items of our question-

naire were intended to cover several aspects of what is deemed “spiritual”

today, as distinct from “institutional religion”, which was measured through

other variables, such as attendance of religious services and prayer.

Another set of items in the questionnaire considers moral values, such

as caring for the welfare of others, pro-social tendencies, forms of gratuity

etc. It being unrealistic to try and provide a formal and extensive list of dif-

ferent moral values, the survey has gathered a total of 25 items revealing

moral attitudes and ideas about directions in life, just to obtain and quantify

proximate variables of morality.

A first run of the questionnaire was distributed to a sample of more

than 100 Spanish high school and university students, in the academic con-

text of their usual lesson times, in their usual classrooms, in the presence of

their teachers or professors. As the outcome revealed no problems of under-

standing or of any other kind (after a test factor was applied), the team de-

cided to keep the questionnaire in its original form. The second time it was

distributed to around 600 people in the same conditions; the total sample

reached a 708 cases, of ages between 15 and 22 years (M = 17.84 years, SD

= 3.053). This is a convenience sample that gathers cases from three coun-

tries: Eastern Spain (391 cases), Northern Ireland (157 cases), and Southern

Italy (Sicily, 160 cases), and was collected during the months of January to

May 2008. All three samples share a Catholic background. Furthermore,

two thirds of the cases were students at Catholic schools; the Sicilian sam-

Page 12: Institutional Religion, Spirituality and Moral Opinion:

12 Manuel Canteras and Lluis Oviedo

ple comes from a state school. However, the variables of confessional reli-

gion often show high levels of secularization or low religious practice and

commitment among this sample of students.

2.2. Results and analysis

The starting hypothesis points to the independence between the de-

scribed dimensions. Since we are looking for independent factors, factor

analysis with Varimax rotation provides a genuine tool to gather the items

into sets or clusters and to distinguish between distinct realms. It allows the

organizing of the variables in a way that suggests both internal relationships

and separateness of items. This statistical procedure reveals – without prior

assumptions – an internal logic in a set of variables, paving the way for fur-

ther interpretation.

We obtained 8 significant main components:

Religious (2)

o F1 Spirituality

o F2 Confessional religion

Moral (4)

o F3 Social morality

o F4 Personal morality

o F5 Justice (fairness)

o F6 Altruism

Ideological (2)

o F7 Materialism

o F8 Rationalism

The appendix contains the tables with the components of every factor

and their significance levels. These results pave the way to a set of anal-

yses. We attempt to organize the different issues arising from them, espe-

cially those concerning the two main questions we are dealing with: the re-

lationship between spirituality and confessional religiosity on the one hand,

and both religious forms and morality on the other.

a) Spirituality and confessional religion.

As regards spirituality and its independence from institutional religious

beliefs and behavior, the factor analysis shows quite a clear distinction be-

tween both “tendencies” and “experiences”. Spirituality is the first factor: it

gathers 8 of the 11 items that we considered might represent or give content

to the idea of spirituality. Omitted are the two items expressed negatively,

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Institutional Religion, Spirituality and Moral Opinion 13

and the ambiguous item that suggested “there is a dark force leading one to

evil”.

The first conclusion is that spirituality, as we have conceptualized it, is

perceived by the present sample of young students in positive terms, never

in negative expressions. Most of the available descriptions of spiritual in-

sight, which could arise apart from institutional religion, are maintained:

ideas of generic transcendence in nature; spiritualism (life after death); be-

ing part of a larger cosmic order; the presence of mysterious positive forces;

and the positive effects of meditation. Obviously, the list does not exhaust

other possible means or forms of spiritual perception, but it offers an initial

guide to its phenomenology.

As has already been stated, our survey draws a quite clear distinction

between the two dimensions: spiritual and confessional or institutional (alt-

hough not throughout the whole data sample). The second factor, bringing

together the four items which characterize institutional religion, as it is

commonly understood, assigns weights below 0.4 to three items belonging

to the spiritual framework: immortality, influence of mysterious forces, and

their positive effects. Furthermore, the cohort of Italian students gave an

integrated factor including both the spiritual and the confessional items. So,

things appear to be rather more complicated. We can try to offer some ex-

planations.

Firstly, with regards to the general distinction between the two groups

of items, the younger generation could be seen as one able to perform such

an operational distinction, and to conceive some spiritual perceptions or ex-

periences apart from the institutional religious framework. The process of

distinction is rather slow and it may take time to develop into a more stable

pattern. In any case, there are still points of contact and even intersections

between both stated forms. Indeed, the weak presence of the mentioned

“spiritual items” within the confessional factor may be easily understood as

items belonging to traditional Catholic views as well: the soul is immortal;

there is a divine providence affecting human affairs; and grace is a positive

helping force. In other words, it is hard to distil an “essential form” of spir-

ituality clearly distinct from traditional religious expressions. As far as the

Italian exception is concerned, together with the previous reasons, the sam-

ple was collected in a medium sized Sicilian town, where Catholic culture

is still very pervasive, and where there is little chance of distinguishing be-

tween the two aspects. As a result, we could claim that this distinction is

perhaps a dimension or consequence of secularization: as secularization in-

creases, so does the ground for spiritually autonomous forms; a result that

nevertheless requires more empirical evidence, as the aforementioned ESS

survey does not (yet) support this thesis.

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14 Manuel Canteras and Lluis Oviedo

An alternative explanation could be that this distinction is a character-

istic trait of the younger stage of religious formation, and a better frame of

interpretation would be developmental religious psychology (Bartkowski,

Xu and Levin, 2008). In broad terms, the ideal of a spiritual experience may

simply belong to teenagers and younger adults, as seems to happen with

other perceptions: illusions or utopian views of society; the huge force of

emotional love and friendship; the individual as central character; the sig-

nificant role of heroism even in moral terms… Common sense tells us that

such idealism fades away with maturity, to make room for more realistic

views, where several factors are deeply interrelated. In our case, the ideal of

spiritual awareness and depth, reached in a personal way, could probably be

followed by a more mature view that might require institutional support as a

condition for a true and healthy spiritual experience. Obviously, the only

way to verify this hypothesis is to broaden the sample, including more ma-

ture people, and to compare their perceptions with those of the younger co-

hort.

It is worth asking how far the results reported here can be understood

in terms of social differentiation, or a further step in the separation of social

or, perhaps “symbolic”, realms (a characteristic trait of modern social evo-

lution). In that case, it would be important to ask about the meaning of such

a hypothetical tendency for the configuration of the whole “religious sys-

tem”, which separates into institutional and non-institutional (personal)

forms (Luhmann, 2000).

b) Religious expressions and moral sense.

The overall main aim of our survey was to ascertain to what extent

moral views are involved in one form of religiosity or another. The most

impressive result of this data is the fact that there is no relationship between

the categories. We register the exception of one spiritual item (meditation is

helpful) weakly present in the sixth factor (altruism, R = 0.31); and the cu-

rious presence of a negative item of spirituality (“I sometimes perceive the dark side of reality that leads to evil”; R = 0.67) in the fourth factor, which

brings together items of personal morality in a negative way. Apart from

this, moral or ideological items do not appear in the spiritual and religious

factors, and spiritual or religious items do not saturate the moral or ideolog-

ical factors. A legitimate conclusion to be derived from the examined sam-

ple is that moral aspects and spiritual or religious perceptions are not related

in principle, and do not follow a common or shared pattern.

However, factor analyses are based on correlations, which only detect

linear relations. In other cases, findings with variables like prejudice and

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Institutional Religion, Spirituality and Moral Opinion 15

mental health indicate a curvilinear relationship with religion. In conse-

quence testing for curvilinearity via regression it is important to assess this

alternative form of relatedness. The analysis thus far does not change basi-

cally what we learned from the linear one. As can be seen in table 4, the

percentiles of curvilinear dependence are very low. Even if some of them

are significant, this is due to the fact that the sample is quite large. In gen-

eral it can be concluded that the authentic factors of the applied analysis are

practically independent.

Table 4: Percentage of explanation (100.R

2) of quadratic regression for ob-

tained factors

Depend. F1 F2 F3 F4 F5 F6 F7 F8

F1 0,0 % 0,0 % 0,7 % 0,1 % 0,1 % 3,4 % 0,0 %

F2 5,2 % 0,6 % 0,1 % 0,2 % 0,0 % 1,7 % 0,3 %

F3 0,5 % 1,4 % 0,4 % 0,1 % 0,0 % 0,1 % 0,2 % F4 0,8 % 0,8 % 0,2 % 0,0 % 0,0 % 0,6 % 0,8 %

F5 0,2 % 1,2 % 1,6 % 0,0 % 0,1 % 0,0 % 0,0 % F6 0,1 % 0,6 % 0,1 % 0,0 % 0,9% 0,0 % 0,1 %

F7 1,6 % 0,9 % 0,0 % 0,1 % 0,0 % 0,3 % 0,9 %

F8 0,1 % 0,5 % 0,1 % 1,8 % 0,2 % 0,0% 0,1 %

The figures in bold are significant at p < .00005

This surprising result calls for an interpretation, as several theoretical

frameworks are available. At first sight, we can resort to the last template

we applied in our analysis above. Perhaps the perceived detachment be-

tween morals and religion belongs to the developmental stage of teenagers,

who would find it difficult to integrate both dimensions (as well as many

others). We could turn again to common sense to explain the usual lack of

coherence among teenagers, especially as regards moral standards. Once

more, the general impression may be that growing up helps people to im-

prove and organize their ideas and perceptions, and to achieve a more inte-

grated relationship between morals and religion. In this case too, ontogeny

would become an outline for phylogeny, or vice versa. A relevant theory in

this case is provided by Steve Mithen (1998): the cognitive process could

proceed through some steps of modularity, distinguishing and specializing

different functions of the mind, and, only later, through a process of “cogni-

tive fluidity”, the communication and interaction among these originally

separate modules results in a greater symbolic complexity and creativity.

The above thesis could find sound historical evidence, as long as the

evolution of religions may be accounted for. Indeed, many ancient religions

did not point to an integration of moral and religious conditions or require-

ments. Some examples are the shamanistic religious forms, and the Greco-

Roman pagan religion, both more concerned about begging for protection

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16 Manuel Canteras and Lluis Oviedo

and benefits from the deities, and less with moral behavior . Just after the so

called “axial age” (800-200 BC) some religions began to point to a greater

integration between religious and moral dimensions: the new religions were

demanding a real moral commitment as a way of expressing personal devo-

tion. Whatever the case may be, we are dealing with a more mature stage in

religious evolution and perhaps one form resorting to higher levels of “cog-

nitive fluidity”.

There are other explanations for the tendency observed. One alterna-

tive path is offered by social and cultural studies. From their view, modern

societies have developed following a pattern of social differentiation be-

tween the main tasks or functions required for survival. This process allows

for specialization and better performance. As a result, religion becomes de-

tached from the economy, politics, science and even art or affectivity. This

tendency could lead to the progressive disentanglement of religion and mo-

rality. Cultural tendencies in recent years could confirm this systemic or

structural development, as the dominant cultures and fashions in the media

tend to keep alive some forms of fuzzy spirituality, but avoid the inconven-

iences of moral engagement, especially in their strict forms of traditional

Christian confessions and other religions. The most culturally “embarrass-

ing” strictures of traditional religions are often set aside in the process of

selective modernization, using what is more convenient and leaving aside

what has become dysfunctional.

In any case, the described results seriously threaten theories pointing to

the origin and evolution of religion following adaptive patterns that confer

in-group cohesion or prompt more social commitment, or to theories dis-

closing a parasitic exploitation by religion on moral cognition. The general

impression derived from our survey is that spiritual and religious ideas or

behavior follow rather a different pattern, probably linked to “internal fac-

tors” guiding that interest, rather than external adaptive pressures (taken as

mere survival and reproductive fitness), or other supposed cognitive links

(in the form of a “by-product). What could this mean? That religion and

spirituality play a distinct role in the human mind, one that is regarded as a

specific human need looking for transcendence and the highest human aspi-

rations. Morality may be “included” in that set; however it is not the “natu-

ral” or immediate impulse, but rather the product of a selective process,

which leads some religions to assume a moral stance. Other possible hy-

pothesis, in line with these results, is that only when religious intensity and

commitment reach some threshold, or a critical mass, especially at the so-

cial level, then the moral link is elicited as a consequence, or the moral im-

plications of religious faith are perceived, but not the other way around. A

different, behavioral, version states that religion facilitates morality only

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Institutional Religion, Spirituality and Moral Opinion 17

when one’s religion becomes one’s in-group. One then acts morally to-

wards one’s in-group but not because of religion.

Summing up these considerations, as societies become more secular-

ized, and morality is no longer seen as an exclusive field of religious com-

petence, religion appears as something independent of morality; at the same

time, ethics appears as a specific area of thought and action, not necessarily

related to religion. It is not easy to assess whether this means a “return” to

the original condition, in a kind of circularity. The cycle would represent

stages of greater or lesser religious involvement in morality during distinct

historical phases.

In this context, we should ask how much use a theory of modularity of

the mind may be, and whether the idea of fluidity between compartments

could provide a reason for further links between religion and morality. In

any case, it seems that in its most immediate expression, religion does not

necessarily imply moral commitment, and only after a process of matura-

tion does religion manage to link both aspects in a fruitful interplay. The

historical record could help to check whether this process explains the suc-

cess of post-axial religions, as they became more essential for assisting

larger and more complex societies, which required other religious forms.

But this theory treads quite a different path from the one favored by reli-

gious adaptationists, who resort to the evolutionist handbook. By the same

token, it is important to assess how much detachment between religion and

morals is “desirable” (a slippery normative field) for our very complex so-

cieties, and whether new synergies or interactions and links should again be

sought, if religion is to play a role in such advanced societies.

Our data offers an opportunity for further minor analyses. The issue of

gender and religion has been much disputed in recent years, and we still

lack clarity and evidence about what constitutes the specific “female or

male” religious perception. Correlating our factors with the variable of gen-

der, some interesting results arise. The first and most obvious is that fe-

males are more prone to the confessional religion and its practice (R=

0.146), and to a lesser degree to the factor of spirituality (R = 0.101). In a

negative sense, females are less inclined to “materialism” (R = 0.156). For

the rest of the factors, the variable of gender lacks specific weight and is not

relevant. Hence young women present higher indices of religious practice

and have a slightly higher spiritual sensitivity, and, perhaps loosely linked

to this last result, they are less materialistic. But once again, the general im-

pression is that the female mind does not work on a distinct scale or with

distinct patterns where religious and moral ideas are concerned.

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18 Manuel Canteras and Lluis Oviedo

3. Discussion and Conclusions

Concerning the outlined hypotheses, it can be concluded that we lack

strong evidence for the first one – stating the possibility to distinguish insti-

tutional religion and spirituality; recent international surveys illustrate the

presence of a “spiritual minority”, distinct from mainline religion. Such a

distinction nevertheless seems to be more salient in our sample of teenag-

ers, and emerges quite clearly through factor-analyzing variables of both

tendencies, in line with the second hypothesis. The third hypothesis as-

sumed a lack of substantial link between morality and religion/spirituality;

this expectation has been confirmed by the results of our survey. Lastly, we

speculate that Christian practice could be correlated with moral tendencies;

however there is not yet evidence supporting this idea.

Reviewing the possible weakness of our research and of our theoretical

case, several issues should be recalled. Firstly, the questionnaire is still far

from completely standardized, even though it has served us well. It is still

very hard to determine indicators of “spiritual insight” which could be con-

sidered distinct from standard religious forms; this intrinsic fuzziness poses

serious problems. Translation of the items into three languages presented

challenges and could have influenced the results. And since the sample is

mostly composed of young Catholic students, the conclusions should be re-

stricted to persons of that background.

A case in point relates to the choice of avoiding the word “God” in all

the items. In the absence of a “God” option, the religious might have either

gone with the “something transcendent” option, or just been confused. As

an example, many people who believe in Heaven do not believe in the after-

life (Hertel,1980). In this sense the questionnaire does not measure how

those who sense God in nature would respond.

A different source of criticism concerns the choice of factor analysis

with Varimax rotation to establish distinct factors. Obviously, the con-

ceived hypotheses determine methods and analysis. Looking for independ-

ent factors justifies the chosen approach. Nevertheless only the data can al-

low us to accept or refute the hypotheses under examination. If any rela-

tionship does exist between items defining morality and those belonging to

other factors, those items would be loading one or more of the factors con-

cerning morality. On the other hand the fact that some items considered

“spiritual” load lowly or loosely in the “religion” and – still less – in the

“moral” factors, may be attributed to fuzziness in the formulation or in the

answers to these items, rather than to the hypothized independence between

the factors.

The theoretical framework used to analyze the outcomes or the theoret-

ical implications could hide some flaws, since the distinction between spir-

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Institutional Religion, Spirituality and Moral Opinion 19

ituality, traditional religion and morality has become a much-disputed topic.

The issue of the modular mind and the fluidity between modules is a very

hypothetical one, and trying to assign a kind of “domain-specific module”

to religion goes against the present consensus in the field of the cognitive

science of religion. Studies of development and personality could play a

greater role in all this, as some of the authors mentioned have suggested.

An important contribution of our research has been to show a possible

way of building a model of spirituality which avoids the pitfalls of super-

imposing the institutional forms of religion, and the risks of becoming too

fuzzy and close to secular perspectives. This has been attained through sta-

tistical clustering of items that could be related to perceptions of transcend-

ence. The model needs to be further expanded, but it already gives a differ-

entiated content to that term, in the explicit attempt to define it and to de-

flate its semantic reach. Further tests could show the extent and range of

application of this model, based on the eight items gathered in the first fac-

tor. Perhaps that range would be limited by the mean age of the selected

sample.

The aim of our research was not to break new ground, but just to ex-

plore alternative ways of dealing with these thorny issues. As we have al-

ready stated, the issues at stake are very significant for different reasons in

our social and cultural milieu. A widely accepted conviction is that orga-

nized or institutional religion is dangerous and tends towards fanaticism,

while spirituality is good and helpful. The link between religion and morali-

ty is an extremely sensitive one these days, and has already been explored

in different directions, in an attempt to provide new frames to simplify the

problem. In our opinion, such links are much more complex than has been

commonly stated so far: the variable of age or personality plays a greater

role in the relationship described, as do the kind of religious tradition and

the social and cultural environments also. In any case, we consider that it

would be an error to think about religion and moral or pro-social behavior

as being too closely related, or to think that morality provides the clue to

understanding religion. It is even more problematic to consider spirituality

as a better candidate for encouraging moral or pro-social attitudes, free of

fanaticism and other flaws linked to institutional religion (an idea that

seems to reflect a degree of wishful thinking). The historical and empirical

evidence runs against these theses, which are closely linked to the philoso-

phy of the Enlightenment and social thought, and had been fully adopted by

the liberal theological tradition. It is time to think again of religion or/and

spirituality as independent variables, as specific human characteristics, later

to point to synergies and fusions with other human and social dimensions,

instead of trying to absorb them into other variables considered safer or

more significant.

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20 Manuel Canteras and Lluis Oviedo

Data References

ESS round 3

R. Jowell and the Central Co-ordinating Team, European Social Survey

2006/2007:

Technical Report, London: Centre for Comparative Social Surveys, City

University (2007). Norwegian Social Science Data Services (NSD) as the

data archive and distributor of the ESS data

Bertelsmann Stiftung (ed.), What the World Believes: Analyses and Com-

mentary on the Religion Monitor 2008, Verlag Bertelsmann Stiftung,

Gütersloh, 2009

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