Flexibility in Existential Beliefs and Worldviews
Introducing and Measuring Existential Quest
Abstract
Being open to questioning and changing one’s own existential beliefs and worldviews is an understudied epistemological tendency we call “existential quest.” We found that existential quest is a specific construct that can be distinguished from related constructs such as searching for meaning in life, readiness to question proreligious beliefs (i.e., religious quest), need for closure, and dogmatism. In five studies, we tested the psychometric qualities of a newly developed 9-item scale and the relationship of existential quest with individual difference variables reflecting ideological and epistemological needs (such as authoritarianism or regulatory focus) and behavioral tendencies (myside bias in an argument generation task). Existential quest showed incremental validity over and above established constructs regarding the prediction of relevant cognitive biases and empathy. The findings indicate the relevance of existential quest as an epistemological construct that seems particularly interesting for research in the developing field of existential psychology.
References
(1967). Personal religious orientation and prejudice. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 5, 432–443.
(1996). The authoritarian specter. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
(2002). Dogmatic behavior among students: Testing a new measure of dogmatism. Journal of Social Psychology, 142, 713–721.
(1992). Authoritarianism, religious fundamentalism, quest, and prejudice. International Journal for the Psychology of Religion, 2, 113–133.
(2005). Cognitive motivation and religious orientation. Personality and Individual Differences, 38, 461–474.
(2008). Quest religion, anti-fundamentalism, and limited versus universal compassion. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, 47, 135–145.
(2001). “And who is my neighbor?” II: Quest religion as a source of universal compassion. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, 40, 39–50.
(1983). Religious orientation and complexity of thought about existential concerns. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, 22, 38–50.
(1991a). Measuring religion as quest: 1) Validity concerns. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, 30, 416–429.
(1991b). Measuring religion as quest: 2) Reliability concerns. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, 30, 430–447.
(1993). Religion and the individual: A social-psychological perspective. New York: Oxford University Press.
(2006). Quest orientation in young women: Age trends during emerging adulthood and relations to body image and disordered eating. International Journal for the Psychology of Religion, 16, 197–207.
(1996). Religion as quest: The self-directed pursuit of meaning. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 22, 1068–1076.
(2009). Contemporary conversions: Compensatory needs or self-growth motives? Research in the Social Scientific Study of Religion, 20, 47–68.
(1982). The need for cognition. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 42, 116–131.
(2003). Validation de la version française de l’échelle de “besoin de clôture” de Webster et Kruglanski (1994) [
Validation of the French translation of Webster and Kruglanski’s Need for Closure Scale (1994) ]. In A. Vom Hofe H. Charvin J.-L. Bernaud D. Guedon, Eds., Psychologie différentielle: Recherches et réflexions (pp. 73–76). Rennes, France: Presses Universitaires de Rennes.(2007). Predictors of moral reasoning: Components of executive functioning and aspects of religiosity. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, 46, 37–53.
(1983). Measuring individual differences in empathy: Evidence for a multidimensional approach. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 44, 113–126.
(1999). Religious orientation and prejudice: The role of religious proscription, right-wing authoritarianism, and social desirability. International Journal for the Psychology of Religion, 9, 157–179.
(2007). Introducing the new indices of religious orientation (NIRO): Conceptualisation and measurement. Mental Health, Religion and Culture, 10, 585–602.
(1949). Intolerance of ambiguity as an emotional perceptual personality variable. Journal of Personality, 18, 108–143.
(2005). The dimensionality of right-wing authoritarianism: Lessons from the dilemma between theory and measurement. Political Psychology, 26, 195–218.
(1995). Tolerance of ambiguity: A review of the concept, its measurement and applications. Current Psychology: Developmental, Learning, Personality, Social, 14, 179–200.
Greenberg, J. Koole, S. L. Pyszczynski, T. Eds. (2004). Handbook of experimental existential psychology. New York: Guilford.
(2002). The growing evidence for personality change in adulthood: Findings from research with personality inventories. Journal of Research in Personality, 36, 287–306.
(1997). Beyond pleasure and pain. American Psychologist, 52, 1280–1300.
(2004). Primary personality trait correlates of religious practice and orientation. Personality and Individual Differences, 36, 61–73.
(1994). Religious fundamentalism and integrative complexity of thought: A relationship for existential content only? Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, 33, 335–346.
(2006). Development and validation of the basic empathy scale. Journal of Adolescence, 29, 589–611.
(2003). Political conservatism as motivated social cognition. Psychological Bulletin, 129, 339–375.
(2005). In genes we trust: The biological component of psychological essentialism and its relationship to mechanisms of motivated social cognition. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 88, 686–702.
(2008). On the development of regulatory focus: The role of parenting styles. European Journal of Social Psychology, 38, 354–364.
(2000). Intuitive und heuristische Urteilsbildung – verschiedene Prozesse? Präsentation einer deutschen Fassung des “Rational-Experiential Inventory” sowie neuer Selbstberichtskalen zur Heuristiknutzung [
Intuitive and heuristic judgment? Different processes? Presentation of a German version of the Rational-Experiential Inventory and of new self-report scales of heuristic use ]. Zeitschrift für Sozialpsychologie, 31, 87–101.(2002). Quest and identity development: Re-examining pathways for existential search. International Journal for the Psychology of Religion, 12, 189–200.
(1999). Adaptation of the big five as a hermeneutic instrument for religious constructs. Personality and Individual Differences, 27, 229–237.
(2004). The psychology of closed mindedness. New York: Psychology Press.
(1997). Personality-Style-and-Disorder-Inventory: Manual. Göttingen: Hogrefe.
(2010). Trait anxiety and measures of religiosity in four cultural settings. Mental Health, Religion, and Culture, 13, 667–682.
(2001). Promotion and prevention focus on alternative hypotheses: Implications for attributional functions. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 80, 5–18.
(2002). Motivation by positive and negative role models: Regulatory focus determines who will best inspire us. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 83, 854–864.
(1998). Amending a measure of the quest religious orientation: Applicability of the scale’s use among religious and nonreligious persons. Personality and Individual Differences, 25, 517–522.
(1995). Folk theories about sex and race differences. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 21, 45–57.
(1998). Communism as religion. International Journal for the Psychology of Religion, 8, 33–48.
(1999). Relativism, nihilism, and quest. Journal of Social Behavior and Personality, 14, 445–462.
(1972). A measure of emotional empathy. Journal of Personality, 40, 525–543.
(2007). Toward modern psychometrics: Application of item response theory models in personality research. In R. W. Robins R. C. Fraley R. F. Krueger, Eds., Handbook of research methods in personality psychology (pp. 407–423). New York: Guilford.
(1997). What the Need for Closure Scale measures and what it does not: Toward differentiating among related epistemic motives. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 73, 1396–1412.
(2011). Essentialism goes social: Belief in social determinism as a component of psychological essentialism. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 100, 1056–1078.
(1960). The open and closed mind. New York: Basic Books.
(2010). Religiousness as a cultural adaptation of basic traits: A Five Factor Model perspective. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 14, 108–125.
(2008). Individual differences in religion and spirituality: An issue of personality traits and/or values. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, 47, 83–101.
(2005). Prosocial behavior and religion: New evidence based on projective measures and peer ratings. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, 44, 323–348.
(2006). Spiritual but not religious? Evidence for two independent dispositions. Journal of Personality, 74, 1257–1292.
(2006). The meaning in life questionnaire: Assessing the presence of and search for meaning in life. Journal of Counseling Psychology, 53, 80–93.
(2008). Understanding the search for meaning in life: Personality, cognitive style, and the dynamic between seeking and experiencing meaning. Journal of Personality, 76, 199–228.
(2003). Associations between myside bias on an informal reasoning task and amount of postsecondary education. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 17, 851–860.
(1993). Age differences in conservatism. Personality and Individual Differences, 14, 405–411.
(1998). Religious orientation, identity, and the quest for meaning in ethics within an ideological surround. International Journal for the Psychology of Religion, 8, 149–164.
(1994). Individual differences in need for cognitive closure. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 67, 1049–1062.
(2005). Constructing measures: An item response modeling approach. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.
(2001). GradeMap [Computer software]. Berkeley, CA: BEAR Center, University of California, Berkeley.
