Empirical Associations of Spirituality and Resilience

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Constantin Klein
• Subject Area: Public Health, Healthcare Research, Social and Occupational Medicine ; Protestant Theology
• Term: from 2019 to 2024
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 348851031

The project “Empirical Associations of Spirituality and Resilience” is submitted as sub-project of the DFG research group “Resilience in Religion and Spirituality. Endurance and the Formation of Powerlessness, Fear and Anxiety” which is submit-ted in charge by Prof. Dr. Cornelia Richter (Bonn). It is the aim of the subproject to empirically investigate the mutual associations between distinct facets of resilience and spirituality among a sample of N = 300 bereaved who shall be surveyed twice with a comprehensive questionnaire during the project. Additionally a selected subsample of n = 30 persons shall be assessed with a detailed interview between the two surveys in order to better understand the specific backgrounds of potential facets of resilience and spirituality.Concerning their associations with well-being both resilience and spirituality are reflected diversely in current discourses and, hence, heterogeneously conceptualized: While resilience is understood in terms of a trait or ability, an adaptation process during coping with a crisis, or a positive outcome of the crisis depending on the diverse perspectives, spirituality is regarded as personality disposition, as coping resource or strategy as well as a dimension of well-being (“spiritual well-being”). So far these differing facets of resilience and spirituality have never systematically been studied empirically. Hence, resilience and spirituality shall be differentially assessed quantitatively with a number of standardized psychometric scales and qualitatively with an adaptation of the Faith Development Interview (FDI) in the submitted project in order to investigate how the empirical associations between spirituality—understood and assessed in terms of experiences of (M-Scale) and beliefs about transcendence (TPV-rev), of a resource and form of coping (COPE), and of a dimension of well-being (PTGI – Spirituality) in their specific biographic contexts (FDI)—and resilience—understood and assessed in terms of a trait (Brief Resilience Scale, Resilienzskala) or personality pattern (BFI-K), of a process of dealing with burden (COPE), and of their effects on well-being (Ryff-Scale)—look like. As results it can be expected that it will be possible to differentially and validly map the roles of resilience and spirituality and the mutual associations of their facets in the process of coping with grief, to understand both phenomena in their characteristic biographical contexts and in their associations to well-being, and, hence, to essentially contribute to the development of an interdisciplinary theory of resilience which is sensitive for spirituality.

• DFG Programme: Research Units
• Subproject of: FOR 2686: Resilience in Religion and Spirituality. Endurance and the Formation of Powerlessness, Fear and Anxiety
• Co-Investigator: Dr. Barbara Keller