Spiritual Struggles among Atheists: Links to Psychological Distress and Well-Being

Religious and spiritual struggles (R/S struggles)—tension or conflicts regarding religious or spiritual matters—have been robustly linked to greater psychological distress and lower well-being. Most research in this area has relied on samples consisting predominantly of participants who believe in god(s). Limited research has examined R/S struggles among atheists, generally conflating them with agnostics and other nontheists. This study investigated the prevalence of R/S struggles among atheists and compared atheists to theists in two samples (3978 undergraduates, 1048 Internet workers). Results of a multilevel model showed that atheists experience less demonic, doubt, divine, moral, and overall R/S struggles than theists, but similar levels of interpersonal and ultimate meaning struggles. Correlation and regression analyses among atheists demonstrated links between moral, ultimate meaning, and overall R/S struggles and greater distress (depression and anxiety symptoms) as well as lower well-being (life satisfaction and meaning in life). Even after controlling neuroticism, ultimate meaning struggles continued to predict lower well-being and higher distress across samples; moral struggles also predicted distress independently. This study demonstrates the relevance of R/S struggles to atheists and reinforces the applicability of previous results to atheist samples, but also highlights substantial differences between atheists and theists in certain R/S struggles

Personal Goal Attainment, Psychological Well-Being Change, and Meaning in Life

Does goal attainment relate to the development of meaning in life and psychological well-being? If so, do these relationships depend on the nature of the goal and why one pursues it? This study sought to generalize the relationship between goal attainment and subjective well-being to meaning in life and psychological well-being, and test whether goal contents and motives moderate this relationship. At two times about seven weeks apart, 360 undergraduates rated their meaning in life and subjective and psychological well-being. All well-being variables loaded on a single general factor of well-being. Further results replicated evidence of the relationship between subjective well-being change and goal attainment, and generalized it to meaning in life and psychological well-being, but not to autonomy or purpose. This evidence offers new support for theories describing goals as sources of meaning, though the causal direction of this connection remains unestablished. In addition, the results of moderation analyses concord with prior research that demonstrates not all goals relate equally to well-being change or meaning in life. However, these results also pose challenges to the finer points of these theories that describe the inequalities among goals in terms of their supposed service to well-being. Many direct relationships and goal attainment moderators from the literature on self-determination theory failed to replicate, extrinsic motivation being the primary exception to this surprising trend of null results. Mixed results also emerged for theories regarding other goal characteristics. Retrospective ratings of environmental support and inter-goal facilitation (versus conflict) moderated the relationship of goal attainment with overall well-being change, and environmental support related to well-being change directly. Time frame, willingness to invest, extrinsic motivation, and overall self-determination predicted changes in well-being directly, but no other motives or characteristics did so prospectively. Only extrinsic motivation and expectations of success prospectively moderated the relationship between goal attainment and well-being change. This relationship with attainment held across most varieties of goal content, most notably vanishing with goals participants identified as financial in nature, though independent judges' categorizations of goal content did not support this distinction. Furthermore, important limitations to the evidentiary value of the research paradigm have gone unacknowledged in prior literature, as discussed last

Supplementary Information for the Religious and Spiritual Struggles Scale: Stability Over One Year

As a supplement to the submitted manuscript, "The Religious and Spiritual Struggles Scale: Stability Over One Year", this document describes: (1) a statistical anomaly in the cross-lagged restricted bifactor model of the Religious and Spiritual Struggles scale, and (2) omitted results on latent mean changes in interpersonal and moral struggles. It also includes explanatory notes in the context of research on religious and spiritual struggles about (3) interpretations of autoregressive effects, (4) limitations in hypothesis tests of cross-lagged effects, and (5) formative and reflective models

Personal Goal Attainment, Psychological Well-Being Change, and Meaning in Life

Does goal attainment relate to the development of meaning in life and psychological well-being? If so, do these relationships depend on the nature of the goal and why one pursues it? This study sought to generalize the relationship between goal attainment and subjective well-being to meaning in life and psychological well-being, and test whether goal contents and motives moderate this relationship. At two times about seven weeks apart, 360 undergraduates rated their meaning in life and subjective and psychological well-being. All well-being variables loaded on a single general factor of well-being. Further results replicated evidence of the relationship between subjective well-being change and goal attainment, and generalized it to meaning in life and psychological well-being, but not to autonomy or purpose. This evidence offers new support for theories describing goals as sources of meaning, though the causal direction of this connection remains unestablished. In addition, the results of moderation analyses concord with prior research that demonstrates not all goals relate equally to well-being change or meaning in life. However, these results also pose challenges to the finer points of these theories that describe the inequalities among goals in terms of their supposed service to well-being. Many direct relationships and goal attainment moderators from the literature on self-determination theory failed to replicate, extrinsic motivation being the primary exception to this surprising trend of null results. Mixed results also emerged for theories regarding other goal characteristics. Retrospective ratings of environmental support and inter-goal facilitation (versus conflict) moderated the relationship of goal attainment with overall well-being change, and environmental support related to well-being change directly. Time frame, willingness to invest, extrinsic motivation, and overall self-determination predicted changes in well-being directly, but no other motives or characteristics did so prospectively. Only extrinsic motivation and expectations of success prospectively moderated the relationship between goal attainment and well-being change. This relationship with attainment held across most varieties of goal content, most notably vanishing with goals participants identified as financial in nature, though independent judges' categorizations of goal content did not support this distinction. Furthermore, important limitations to the evidentiary value of the research paradigm have gone unacknowledged in prior literature, as discussed last

Supplementary Information for the Religious and Spiritual Struggles Scale: Stability Over One Year

As a supplement to the submitted manuscript, "The Religious and Spiritual Struggles Scale: Stability Over One Year", this document describes: (1) a statistical anomaly in the cross-lagged restricted bifactor model of the Religious and Spiritual Struggles scale, and (2) omitted results on latent mean changes in interpersonal and moral struggles. It also includes explanatory notes in the context of research on religious and spiritual struggles about (3) interpretations of autoregressive effects, (4) limitations in hypothesis tests of cross-lagged effects, and (5) formative and reflective models

Correction: Saritoprak, S.N. et al. 2018. Spiritual Jihad among U.S. Muslims: Preliminary Measurement and Associations with Well-Being and Growth. Religions 9: 158

The author wishes to make the following corrections to (Saritoprak et al. 2018) [...