John B. Nezlek

The Spiritual Involvement and Beliefs Scale-Revised (SIBS-R) is a popular measure of spirituality. Nevertheless, some items on the SIBS-R measure constructs other than spirituality (e.g., well-being), which undermines the validity of the SIBS-R as a measure of spirituality. In light of this, a new version of the SIBS-R, the SIBS-R2, was created. The SIBS-R2 consists of eight items from the SIBS-R that are not confounded with other constructs such as well-being. The SIBS-R2 was validated in two samples of university students, US (n = 153-433) and Canada (n = 214-273). Participants in these studies completed the SIBS-R, and they completed measures of religiosity (intrinsic, extrinsic, and religion as quest), personality (the Big Five and self-focused attention), and well-being (self-esteem, depression, and satisfaction with life). The SIBS-R2 was reliable in both samples (α = 0.92, US and 0.91, CA), and factor analyses found that the single-factor structures in the two samples were similar. Regression analyses found that the SIBS-R2 was positively related to intrinsic religiosity and was not significantly related to personal and social extrinsic religiosity nor to religion as quest. SIBS-R2 scores were positively correlated with satisfaction with life, self-esteem, agreeableness, conscientiousness, openness, and reflection, and was negatively correlated with rumination, although these relationships were not strong and varied slightly between the two samples. These results suggest that the SIBS-R2 is a measure of spirituality that is not meaningfully contaminated with personality, self-focused attention, and some aspects of well-being. Furthermore, a brief, three-item version of the SIBS-R2 was proposed.

In two studies, people estimated the percent of vegans, vegetarians, those following a reduced meat diet and omnivores for specific populations. In a study of Polish adults ( n = 1038), participants provided estimates of the diets of Poles and of residents of the US. In a US student sample ( n = 2538), participants provided estimates of the diets of their fellow students and of the US population. With a few exceptions, participants overestimated the sizes of dietary minorities (vegans, vegetarians, and reducetarians) and underestimated size of the dietary majority (omnivores). Moreover, these under‐ and overestimates did not vary systematically as a function of participant diet or vegetarian threat. Although women's estimates of the size of dietary minorities were larger than men's and women's estimates of the size of the omnivorous majority were smaller than men's, both men and women overestimated the percent of dietary minorities and underestimated the percent of omnivores. These misestimates reflect the operation of a general cognitive bias called ‘Uncertainty‐Based Rescaling’, that has been found to explain why people consistently underestimate the sizes of majorities and overestimate the sizes of minorities without the need to infer the operation of biases due to similarity, threat and so forth.

Background: Savoring, the ability to focus on and appreciate the positive aspects of experience, is an important aspect of well-being. To provide a measure to study savoring among speakers of Polish, we created a Polish-language version of Bryant’s Savoring Beliefs Inventory (SBI), which is in English. This new scale measures the same three constructs as the original scale: anticipating, savoring the moment, and reminiscing. Participants and procedure: Participants were 574 Polish adults (mean age = 37.7 years, SD = 14.4; 77% women) who were recruited by a professional survey company. Participants completed a Polish-language version of the SBI we developed, and for validation purposes, they completed measures of anxiety, depression, self-esteem, satisfaction with life, meaning in life, authenticity, and well-being. Results: Confirmatory factor analyses demonstrated that our Polish-language version of the SBI reflected the same three factors as the original measure, and scores on these three subscales were reliable. We found significant positive correlations between the subscales of the new measure and self-esteem, satisfaction with life, meaning in life, authenticity, and well-being. We found significant negative correlations between savoring and anxiety and depression. These relationships were comparable to those found in research using the original measure. Conclusions: The present results suggest that our proposed Polish-language version of Bryant’s SBI assesses the same constructs as those measured by the original scale, and we believe that our new measure will be useful for researchers interested in studying savoring among Polish language speakers.

In three studies conducted in the United States ( n = 598), Poland ( n = 1000) and Chile ( n = 311), we measured participants' Identification With All Humanity and their endorsement of Universalist and Benevolent values as defined by Schwartz and colleagues. In all three studies, when IWAH scores were regressed onto values scores, IWAH scores were significantly (positively) related to the endorsement of Universalism values and were not significantly related to the endorsement of Benevolence values. With one exception, this was also true for the subscales of the two measures of values. The present results confirm a recent model of prosociality that distinguishes ideological and interpersonal prosociality. Although Universalism and Benevolence are both prosocial values, they refer to different domains of prosociality, ideological and interpersonal respectively, and IWAH is related to the former but not to the latter.

The present study examined responses to COVID-19 at the beginning of the pandemic, April 2020, among a representative sample of 880 Poles. Participants described their religious beliefs, their emotional reactions to the pandemic, the changes they had made in their behavior since the onset of the pandemic, and their political orientation (left–right). Roman Catholics felt more threatened by the pandemic than non-believers, and Catholics reacted more strongly to the pandemic than non-believers in terms of feeling scared, paralyzed by fear, panicked, fearful, sad, woebegone, and lost, whereas there were no such differences on other emotional reactions. Compared to non-believers, Catholics changed their behavior to be more compliant with public health guidelines and changed some behaviors that were not recommended by public health officials but were popular (e.g., stocking up on food and on cleaning products). There were however, no differences between the two groups in terms of wearing masks, limiting leaving home, and avoiding contact with those who were ill. Catholics had weaker intentions to get vaccinated than non-believers. Catholics’ political orientation was more right-wing than non-believers’ orientation, and the difference in vaccination intentions between Catholics and non-believers disappeared after controlling for differences in political orientation. Controlling for political orientation did not change the results of the analyses of emotional reactions and behavioral changes.

Research on mindsets, the extent to which people believe that people can change (incrementalism) has found that incrementalism is positively related to success in various domains. One explanation for this relationship is that incrementalism is associated with a mastery orientation, which in turn is associated with success/achievement. The present study examined if the relationship between incrementalism and positive outcomes can be extended to include well-being, and if so, would a mastery orientation mediate such relationships. The present study examined if environmental mastery as conceptualized by Ryff and colleagues mediated relationships between mindsets and well-being. Participants (n = 447) completed measures of implicit theories of the self (incrementalism), Ryff and Keyes’s multidimensional measure of well-being, meaning in life, positivity, optimism, future time perspective, and self-esteem. A series of mediational analyses found that environmental mastery mediated relationships between incremental beliefs and all measures of well-being. For most measures of well-being, the direct effects of mindset beliefs on well-being were rendered non-significant when environmental mastery was included as a mediator. The present results confirm and extend to the general domain the supposition that a mastery orientation is responsible for relationships between well-being and incremental theories of the self.

Differences between the basic human values of vegetarians and non-vegetarians were examined in three studies of samples of adults drawn from general populations, one in the US and two in Poland. Vegetarians were oversampled in the US study (514 vegetarians, 540 non-vegetarians) and in one study in Poland (301 vegetarians, 335 non-vegetarians). In the other Polish study, there 68 vegetarians and 1943 non-vegetarians. Values were measured using Schwartz’s Portrait Value Questionnaire. Across all three studies, Benevolence, Security, and Conformity values were significantly less important for vegetarians than they were for non-vegetarians, although the difference for Conformity was marginally significant (p < .10) in the US study. Across all three studies, vegetarians also endorsed Tradition values less strongly than non-vegetarians, although this difference was not statistically significant in the US study (p = .12). Across all three studies, vegetarians endorsed Stimulation, Achievement, and Power values more strongly than non-vegetarians did. There was only one value, Self-direction, for which the difference between vegetarians and non-vegetarians varied between the two countries. In the US, Self-direction values were more important for non-vegetarians than they were for vegetarians, whereas in Poland the difference was in the opposite direction. Across the three studies, there were only a few instances in which differences between vegetarians and non-vegetarians varied as a function of respondents’ gender. These results suggest that following a vegetarian diet represents a manifestation of values that emphasize independence and individuality, a possibility that is somewhat at odds with how vegetarianism is often discussed.

The study examined how following a vegetarian diet affects the attractiveness of a potential dating partner among those who do not follow a vegetarian diet. Participants, 404 heterosexual meat-eaters, took part in an online experiment in which they evaluated the dating profile of a target person who was described as following a vegetarian diet for health, ethical, or environmental reasons, and a control condition that had no description of the target’s diet. Participants rated the target in terms of a feeling thermometer, willingness to date, gender congruence, and possession of masculine and feminine traits. Participant’s level of identification as a meat-eater was also measured. A series of two (participant gender) by four (target diet) ANOVAs found significant interactions in the analyses of the feeling thermometer ratings, showing that women viewed ethically motivated targets less positively than men did. We also found significant main effects of target diet in willingness to date, gender congruence, and possession of feminine and masculine traits. Meat-eaters evaluated targets with no diet information more positively than the health-motivated target. Controlling for identification as a meat-eater, women evaluated ethically-motivated targets as having less feminine traits than men did. The present results suggest that being a vegetarian makes a person less attractive as a potential partner among omnivores, who constitute the majority of people in most Western, industrialized countries.

The present study examined relationships between social value orientation and personal values. Participants, n = 1655, were university students (M_age = 18.9 years, 60% women) who completed the Triple Dominance Measure, a measure of social value orientation, and the PVQ-21, a measure of Schwartz’s personal values. Two items were added to the PVQ-21 to measure benevolence toward people in general. The analyses found that pro-socials had significantly higher scores than pro-selfs (Competitors and Individualists) for Benevolence, Universalism, and Conformity values, whereas pro-selfs had significantly higher scores than pro-socials on Hedonic, Achievement, and Power values. These differences reflected the fact that Benevolence, Universalism, and Conformity values concern the feelings and well-being of others, concerns that are consistent with a pro-social orientation. In contrast, Hedonic, Achievement, and Power values concern self-enhancement, concerns that are consistent with a self-focused orientation. There were no significant differences between individualists and competitors for any value, nor were there differences of any kind for Tradition, Security, Self-direction, and Stimulation values. These results complement and expand previous research by demonstrating how individual differences in social value orientation are related to individual differences in fundamental, personal human values.

We examined relationships between restrained eating and personality and self-esteem in a sample of 4382 undergraduates attending a university in the US, M_age = 18.9, SD = 1.42. Restrained eating was measured using the Dutch Eating Behavior Questionnaire, personality was measured using the BFI-44, and self-esteem was measured using the Rosenberg self-esteem scale. Restrained eating scores were regressed onto the five personality traits of the BFI-44 using ordinary least squares multiple linear regression. These analyses found that restrained eating was significantly and positively related to extraversion, conscientiousness, and neuroticism. Restrained eating was not significantly related to agreeableness and openness. Moderation analyses suggested that restrained eating was not related to neuroticism for women with obesity, but it was related for women without obesity. Restrained eating was negatively correlated with self-esteem, and this relationship was stronger for women than it was for men. These findings contribute to our understanding about the personality factors associated with restrained eating, which may help us better understand individual differences in dietary behaviors.