Religious and Spiritual Conflicts: A Psychological Perspective

We present a brief history of research on religious and spiritual struggles and of the development of their typology and measurement by means of the Religious and Spiritual Struggles Scale (Exline, Pargament, Grubbs, & Yali, 2014). Following a terminological clarification of the terms religiousness and spirituality, which are often used interchangeably, an overview of the current state of research in the field of religious and spiritual conflicts is given on the basis of fundamental contributions, especially by one of the main pioneers in this field, the US-American psychologist Julie Juola Exline. With research so far having most extensively focused on American samples, various cultural and social backgrounds are recently starting to be explored, as it cannot be assumed that results from one society can be readily transferred to other, e.g., more secular, societies. The article concludes with a discussion of the findings and an outlook on research desiderata, especially for the European context, where a lack of data is still evident.