Quest-Religious Orientation Among Church Leaders in Australia: A Function of Psychological Predisposition or Openness to Mystical Experience?
Leslie J. Francis, A. Village, R. Powell
Psychology of Religion and Spirituality April 27, 2017 DOI: 10.1037/rel0000125 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Cross-sectional survey Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Sample size | 1,265 |
| Population | Religious church leaders in Australia who participated in the 2011 National Church Life Survey |
| Topics | Mystical experience |
| Key findings | Higher quest-religious orientation among church leaders was independently associated with both psychological preferences (intuition and perceiving) and higher levels of mystical experience. |
Abstract
Quest-religious orientation among church leaders signifies a style of leadership committed to religious explorations more than to religious certainties. For this study, we set out to explore the extent to which quest orientation among a sample of 1,265 religious church leaders who participated in the 2011 Australian National Church Life Survey was a function of psychological predisposition, conceptualized in terms of psychological type theory, or a function of distinctive forms of religious experience, conceptualized in terms of Happold’s (1963) model of mysticism. The data demonstrated that higher levels of mystical orientation were associated with psychological predisposition, involving extraversion, intuition, feeling, and perceiving. After controlling for sex, age, education, denominational groups, and psychological type, higher levels of mystical orientation were also associated with higher levels of quest-religious orientation. Mystical orientation partly mediated the effect of intuition on question orientation, but psychological preferences (for intuition and perceiving) and mystical orientation seemed independently to promote quest orientation. Thus, church leaders committed to religious explorations rather than to religious certainties seemed to have been shaped both by psychological predisposition and by distinctive forms of religious experience.
Comparable studies
Other cross-sectional and survey studies on mystical experience, most cited first.
| Study | Year | Design | Participants |
|---|---|---|---|
| Of Roots and Fruits: A Comparison of Psychedelic and Nonpsychedelic Mystical Experiences Self-selected participants who reported a religious, spiritual, or mystical experience | 2016 | Cross-sectional survey | n = 739 |
| Illicit Use of LSD or Psilocybin, but not MDMA or Nonpsychedelic Drugs, is Associated with Mystical Experiences in a Dose-Dependent Manner Adults recruited from the MAPS website and newsletter, most reporting use of various... | 2012 | Cross-sectional survey | n = 337 |
| Peak Experiences: Some Empirical Tests Random sample of adults in the San Francisco Bay Area | 1978 | Cross-sectional survey | |
| Peak Experience Tendencies | 1982 | Cross-sectional survey | |
| Rhythmic Chanting and Mystical States across Traditions. Regular chanters across 33 countries | 2021 | Cross-sectional survey | n = 464 |