Abstract
“Spirituality” has become a rather popular way of self-describing one’s world view and practice in relation to the ultimate. While for many “spirituality” is more or less identical with “religion,” surveys document that a growing number of people contrast “spirituality” and “religion,” self-identifying as “spiritual, but not religious” or as “more spiritual than religious.” These are indications of changes in the religious field. This chapter aims at locating the Bielefeld-based Cross-cultural Study on “Spirituality” in the context of results from recent large-scale survey research (General Social Survey; Allgemeine Bevölkerungsumfrage der Sozialwissenschaft; Religion Monitor). Survey results on “spirituality” will be presented to contextualize analyses that are presented in later chapters of this volume—and to profile our research design and its aims. Contextualization however also means to introduce the research design of our study—which is not another survey, but rather the attempt to answer questions that surveys leave open. Most urgent desiderata in the study of “spirituality” regard the semantics, psychology and biographical significance of spirituality. Our study has thus employed a variety of methods: quantitative self-report data, free entries in the questionnaire, semantic differentials, an experimental approach, and last but not least a large amount of personal interviews. This chapter ends with an outline of the combination and triangulation of the variety of methods and sorts of data.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
ALLBUS 2012. (2013). Allgemeine Bevölkerungsumfrage der Sozialwissenschaften ALLBUS 2012 [General population survey for the social sciences ALLBUS 2012] [machine-readable data file]. Köln: GESIS - Leibniz Institute for the Scoial Sciences, Datenarchiv.
GSS 1972–2012. (2013). General Social Surveys 1972–2012 [machine-readable data file]. Chicago: National Opinion Research Center.
Houtman, D., & Aupers, S. (2007). The spiritual turn and the decline of tradition: The spread of post-Christian spirituality in 14 Western countries, 1981–2000. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, 46, 305–320. doi:10.1111/j.1468-5906.2007.00360.x
Huber, S., & Klein, C. (2011). Spirituelle und religiöse Konstrukträume. Plurale Konstruktionsweisen religiöser und spiritueller Identitäten im Spiegel der deutschen Daten des Religionsmonitors 2008 [Spiritual and religious construct space. Plural modes of constructing religious and spiritual identities as reflected in the data of the Religion Monitor 2008]. In A. Büssing & N. B. Kohls (Eds.), Spiritualität transdisziplinär. Wissenschaftliche Grundlagen im Zusammenhang mit Gesundheit und Krankheit (pp. 53–66). Heidelberg: Springer.
ISSP 2008. (2010). International Social Survey Programme 2008: Religion III [machine-readable data file]. GESIS - Leibniz Institute for the Social Sciences.
Pickel, G. (2013). Religion monitor—Understanding common ground. Güthersloh: Bertelsmann Foundation.
Popp-Baier, U. (2009). From religion to spirituality—Megatrend in contemporary society or methodological artefact? A contribution to the secularization debate from psychology of religion. Journal of Religion in Europe, 3, 1–34.
RM 2012. (2013). Religion Monitor 2012 [machine-readable data file]. Gütersloh: Bertelsmann Foundation.
Schmidt, T., & Wohlrab-Sahr, M. (2003). Still the most areligious part of the world: Developments in the religious field in Eastern Germany since 1990. International Journal for Practical Theology, 7, 86–100.
Siegers, P. (2012). Alternative Spiritualitäten. Neue Formen des Glaubens in Europa: Eine empirische Analyse [Alternative spiritualities. new forms of belief in Europe: An empirical analysis]. Frankfurt/M.: Campus.
WVS. (2014). World Values Survey Wave 6, 2010–2014 [machine-readable data file]. ASEP/JDS. Madrid, World Values Survey Association (www.worldvaluessurvey.org)
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2016 Springer International Publishing Switzerland
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Streib, H., Klein, C., Hood, R.W. (2016). Investigating “Spirituality”: Between Survey Data and the Study of Biographies. In: Streib, H., Hood, Jr., R. (eds) Semantics and Psychology of Spirituality. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-21245-6_3
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-21245-6_3
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-21244-9
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-21245-6
eBook Packages: Behavioral Science and PsychologyBehavioral Science and Psychology (R0)