PUB - Publikationen an der Universität Bielefeld

Objective: Based on Fowler’s wide definition of faith as finding meaning in life, and progressing with his perspective on faith as a typology of hierarchically ordered styles that can optimally be assessed with the faith development interview (FDI), this study breaks new ground by investigating predictors and outcomes of faith development. Methods: This investigation is possible, because in two decades of mixed-method research with the FDI in the USA and Germany, we accumulated over 1500 FDIs including n = 324 longitudinal cases with at least one re-interview. Based on this longitudinal sample, this article presents results from quantitative analysis of faith development associated with a wide range of variables. Results: Results confirm assumptions that faith development predicts the rejection of the representation of God as authoritarian and predicts the rejection of xenophobia and other prejudice. Faith development also results in higher need for cognition, tolerance of ambiguity, and openness to revising one’s viewpoint. Predictors for faith development are high openness to experience, low frequency of payer and of experience of divine intervention. Predictors are also low agreement to the truth of texts and religious teachings (Religious Schema Scale, RSS), high agreement to the fairness, tolerance and rational choice schema (RSS) and to the xenosophic-dialogical schema (RSS) that features openness to the alien and strange. Discussion: After two decades of faith development research, we thus can present predictive validity for the RSS and, based on this evidence, conclude that the RSS can be used to predict faith development.