Distinguishing Between Self-Classified Religious and Spiritual Emerging Adults: Conceptual and Operational Challenges

The last ten years has witnessed a sharp increase in research related to spirituality as well as the proliferation of numerous measures of the construct. However, there has been little research examining the relationship between and among measures of spirituality, much less to measures of religion. This study sought to determine whether measures of spirituality and religion could discriminate between participants who self-identified as both religious and spiritual (B), religious only (R), spiritual only (S), or neither (N). Two religion measures and three spirituality measures assessed the constructs. It was predicted that those who self-identified as religious only would score significantly higher on the religion measures than those who identified as spiritual only, but those that identified as spiritual only would score significantly higher on the spirituality measures than those who identified as religious only. Results supported the first hypothesis, but not the second. The relationship between spirituality and religion measures suggested substantial overlap.