Explicit spirituality, self-esteem and the mechanisms of social and temporal comparison

Author/s: Nicolas Roussiau, Jean-Michel Galharret, Justine Ollivaud

DOI: https://doi.org/10.37898/spc.2023.8.1.187 

Year: 2023 Vol: 8 Number: 1

Abstract

The purpose of this research is to find out if people who call themselves spiritual compare themselves less to others and have a higher self-esteem. Comparing oneself to others often leads to suffering and unhappiness. Thus, this quantitative study aimed to investigate the relationship between explicit spirituality, social and temporal comparisons and self-esteem. Four questionnaires were completed by 331 participants, each evaluating the different variables. The results confirmed our hypothesis which suggested that individuals with high spiritual scores would have low social and temporal comparison scores on the one hand, and high self-esteem on the other. The theoretical implications and limitations of the study are discussed.

Keywords
spirituality •explicit spirituality •social comparison •temporal comparison •self-esteem.