The Concept of Spirituality: A Response to Martínez-Taboas’s Criticisms of Its Utility in Psychology
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.37226/rcp.v10i1.18693Keywords:
spirituality, religiosity, psychological well-being, tautology, measurement, construct validityAbstract
The concept of spirituality has gained increasing prominence in psychological research, but it has also raised questions regarding its conceptual boundaries, measurement, and scientific utility. Martínez-Taboas particularly criticizes the heterogeneity of its definitions and the risk of tautology when measures of spirituality incorporate indicators of well-being, purpose, or other variables subsequently used as criteria of mental health. In this response, I agree with several of these concerns and reconsider some of my own previous formulations of multidimensional spirituality. I propose distinguishing between conceptual and operationalization problems, reclaiming the term religiosity when the phenomenon under study is properly religious, and critically examining the distinction between theistic and nontheistic spirituality. I further argue that measures of spirituality should demonstrate discriminant validity from related constructs and, when justified by their predictive capacity, incremental validity. I conclude that the central question is not simply whether spirituality should be retained or abandoned, but rather what this construct contributes beyond religiosity, well-being, and other established psychological constructs.
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