A Rapid Review of the Interrelations Between Spirituality, Self-Transcendence, and Prosociality
Weber, Robin, Singh, Smita, Barlas, Joanna, Hennessy, Maria, and Ramsay, Jonathan E. (2026) A Rapid Review of the Interrelations Between Spirituality, Self-Transcendence, and Prosociality. Pastoral Psychology. (In Press)
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Abstract
It is increasingly acknowledged that spirituality often exists outside of religious frameworks, and the number of individuals identifying as spiritual but not religious is increasing around the world. Moreover, spirituality has been associated with a variety of positive intrapersonal and interpersonal effects rooted in self-transcendence. However, unlike religiosity, there have been few attempts to synthesize the literature on the relations between nonreligious spirituality, self-transcendence, and prosociality. This rapid review analyzes 53 studies related to these variables, revealing a consistent association between self-transcendence and prosociality. The review also identifies spiritual antecedents for prosocial behaviors across a broad range of ages and cultures, however, associations between these variables and spirituality remain uncleardue to an overabundance of conceptualizations and associated measures. Consensus on the assessment of spirituality has not been reached due to insufficient research beyond cross-sectional methods and samples from 'WEIRD' countries. Furthermore, the review highlights the positive impacts of prosocial behavior and its drivers on well-being.
| Item ID: | 92848 |
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| Item Type: | Article (Research - C1) |
| ISSN: | 1573-6679 |
| Keywords: | Prosociality, Self-transcendence, Spirituality, Well-being |
| Copyright Information: | © The Author(s) 2026. This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. |
| Date Deposited: | 24 Aug 2026 03:02 |
| FoR Codes: | 52 PSYCHOLOGY > 5299 Other psychology > 529999 Other psychology not elsewhere classified @ 50% 52 PSYCHOLOGY > 5205 Social and personality psychology > 520504 Psychology of religion @ 50% |
| SEO Codes: | 28 EXPANDING KNOWLEDGE > 2801 Expanding knowledge > 280121 Expanding knowledge in psychology @ 100% |
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