Daryl R Van Tongeren
Biographic Data
| ID | 181554 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Daryl R Van Tongeren |
| GIVEN NAMES | Daryl R |
| FAMILY NAME | Van Tongeren |
| SIGNATURE | VAN TONGEREN D R |
| AFFILIATIONS | Hope College |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-1810-9448 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 113 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 76 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 113 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2009 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 5 |
Wrongness admission among religious leaders leads to positive interpersonal impressions.
Residual authoritarianism
God Representations and Ideal Selves
Psychological research on the self-concept shows people seek to acquire skills, traits, and behaviours that reflect their ideal selves. In Christian theology, humans are understood to be made in God’s image ( imago Dei ), suggesting a prototypical ideal self (albeit individually unique and marred by sin). Psychology distinguishes “God concepts” (intellectual understandings and beliefs about God) from “God images” (emotional experiences of God): “…
Existential motivations for religious devotion
Religion is a powerful social force. Although devotion is multiply affected by a host of motivational and contextual features and can be expressed in a multitude of domains, I explore the existential motivations for religious devotion. Accordingly, I propose that religious devotion is (partially) driven by a desire to satisfy existential concerns; that is, religion is an existential resource. Its ability to effectively manage existential anxiety …
Intellectual Humility Predicts Empathic Accuracy and Empathic Resilience
Three preregistered studies ( N = 533) investigated the relationship between intellectual humility (IH) and cognitive and emotional empathy. Study 1 ( n = 212) revealed a positive association between IH and empathic accuracy (EA), especially toward the outgroup. Study 2 ( n = 112) replicated the significant association between IH and EA. Study 3 ( n = 209) employed a manipulation to enhance IH to demonstrate causality. We found evidence for an in…
Spirituality Beyond Religion
Emerging evidence suggests that nonreligious individuals may desire existential meaning and transcendent connection that extends beyond religious contexts. Personality psychology has long incorporated religion and spirituality, however, existing tools assess the presence of religious beliefs or general spirituality, and there is no validated measure to assess the motivational state that we term spiritual yearning. This study aimed to examine the …
Life loses some meaning after leaving religion
Religious Dones Become More Politically Liberal After Leaving Religion
OBJECTIVE: Research has accumulated evidence for religious residue, or the tendency for aspects of religion to persist after de-identification. The current study sought to examine whether religious residue extends to political orientation; or religious dones report more liberal political attitudes after leaving religion. METHOD: We report data from eight samples drawn from three countries (N = 11,017), using both cross-sectional (Studies 1a-f) an…
The Future of Religious Deidentification
Spiritual and Mental Health Care for Faith Deconstruction
Target Trial Emulation Shows That Supported Causal Effects of Religious Attendance on Well-Being Are Selective
Religious service attendance is associated with better well-being, but observational associations do not establish causation. We analyse six annual waves of the New Zealand Attitudes and Values Study (N = 46, 377) to estimate causal effects of monthly attendance on 24 well-being indicators using target trial emulation. Deterministic 'make everyone attend' contrasts fail positivity: only 2-3% of non-attenders initiate attendance per year. We there…
Religious/spiritual struggles and well-being
Disagreeing well
Feeling forsaken? Religious cognitive dissonance among religious dones and nones
Integration of Psychology and Mental Health in the Work of Religious Leaders
Religious leaders are often first responders to mental health concerns in their religious communities. The current study examined the extent to which religious leaders (a) integrate information from psychology/mental health into their religious work and (b) encourage congregants who are struggling with mental illness to seek treatment. Participants were 1,600 religious leaders (primarily Christian) recruited from a nationwide sample of religious …
Attitudes toward genomic health care among Christian dones in the United States
Objective: Recent research has explored the phenomenon of religious residue, which describes the tendency for religious cognitions, emotions, and behaviors to linger after deidentification from religion. We sought to test the religious residue effect in health-related attitudes. Methods: = 459) in the United States. Results: Overall, results revealed that religious dones' health-related attitudes largely mirror the never religious participants'. …
The four horsemen of religious deidentification
Different is the Faith of a Child, Different is the Faith of an Adult, I Just Managed to Get This Faith, My Own” - Qualitative Study on the Concept of Religious Deidentification. Conclusions from the …
Tradeoffs of humility in the face of existential concerns
What is Humility Good For? A Meta-Analysis of Humility, Health, and Well-Being
Humility, the organizing virtue of multicultural frameworks in counseling psychology, has traditionally been framed to be positively associated with health and well-being and negatively associated with mental illness. Despite lauded benefits, however, scholars have cautioned that humility may not always be of benefit. To examine these associations, we conducted a meta-analysis to clarify the magnitude of the associations between humility and phys…
Evaluating the Performance of the LI3P in Latent Profile Analysis Models
Numerous methods exist to determine the optimal number of classes when using latent profile analysis (LPA), but none are consistently correct. Recently, the likelihood incremental percentage per parameter (LI3P) was proposed as a model effect-size measure. To evaluate the LI3P more thoroughly, we simulated 50,000 datasets, manipulating factors including sample size, class distance, number of indicators, and number of classes. Results indicate the…
Self-regulation facilitates forgiveness in close relationships
Meaning making enhances gratitude to God
The social pain of religious deidentification
To hell with the devil
Religious residue
31,604) found that individuals who deidentified were still relatively likely to engage in prosocial behavior (e.g., volunteering) after leaving religion. This research has broad implications for understanding changing global trends in religious identification and their consequences for psychology and behavior. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved)
People both high and low on religious fundamentalism are prejudiced toward dissimilar groups
[Correction Notice: An Erratum for this article was reported in Vol 112(1) of Journal of Personality and Social Psychology (see record 2016-61714-004). In the article, the sample size of N = 5,806 in the abstract is incorrect. The correct sample size is N = 6,047.] Research linking religion to prejudice suggests that highly religious individuals, and religious fundamentalists specifically, may be especially susceptible to expressing prejudice tow…
The moral foundations hypothesis does not replicate well in Black samples
The current study examined the generalizability of the moral foundations hypothesis (Graham, Haidt, & Nosek, 2009), which predicts that conservatism will be positively related to the binding foundations (i.e., virtues of ingroup/loyalty, authority/respect, and purity/sanctity). Religiosity has been consistently linked with the binding foundations in predominately White samples, but Black people in the United States are both more religious and mor…
Racial/Ethnic Identity, Religious Commitment, and Well-Being in African Americans
Although the study of positive psychology has flourished in recent years, most research has focused on White samples. There is, however, a growing body of research examining cultural factors that may contribute to the psychological health and well-being of African Americans. The present study examined the associations between racial/ethnic identity, religious commitment, satisfaction with life, and meaning in a sample of African Americans ( N = 1…
Can Religion Promote Virtue
Rather than simply studying whether religious individuals are more forgiving than nonreligious individuals, recent research has focused on how religion may promote a more fluid and efficient forgiveness process. The present studies sought to strengthen evidence for a model of relational spirituality and forgiveness (Davis, Hook, & Worthington, 2008), given the reliance of prior studies on cross-sectional designs that did not control for hurtfulne…
Toward an Understanding of Religious Tolerance
We interact frequently with individuals with religious beliefs that vary from our own. Although we may naturally prefer interacting with religiously similar others, individuals vary in their attitudes toward religiously dissimilar others. In the present set of studies, we examined how variability in quest religiousness affects religious tolerance. In Study 1 (N = 159), we found that quest religiousness in Christian undergraduates was associated w…
Victims versus perpetrators
People feel worse about their forgiveness when mismatches between forgiveness and amends create adaptation risks
Building on principles of evolutionary psychology and sociometer theory, we propose that people feel worse about the extent to which they have forgiven when their forgiveness level increases their risk of exploitation or their risk of spoiling a valuable relationship. We predicted that people would feel worse about their forgiveness level when they grant a high level of forgiveness to a perpetrator who has made weak (vs. strong) amends, thereby h…
The Existential Function of Intrinsic Religiousness
Managing existential concerns is theorized to be a key function of religion. We posit that priming religion should be related to greater existential security for those high in intrinsic religiosity. In Experiment 1, priming religion increased intercultural tolerance among individuals who were highly intrinsically religious but decreased it for those low in intrinsic religiousness. In Experiment 2, intrinsic religiousness again moderated the effec…
Is There a Dark Side to Humility? Cross-Sectional and Longitudinal Evidence for Existential Costs of Humility
Previous research has highlighted the benefits of holding one’s views with humility. However, might intellectual humility surrounding existential beliefs also incur some psychological costs? To advance research on intellectual humility about existential concerns (IH-E), we conducted four studies (N = 1,700) to examine potential costs of humility. Study 1 (N = 203) revealed that IH-E was associated with greater death-related anxiety. Study 2 (N = …
Permitting immoral behaviour
When are we more likely to permit immoral behaviours? The current research examined a generalized compensation belief hypothesis that individuals, as observers, would morally tolerate and accept someone paying forward unfair treatment to an innocent person as a means to compensate for the perpetrator's previously experienced mistreatment. Across five experiments ( N = 1107) based on economic games (Studies 1–4) and diverse real‐life scenarios (St…
No Longer Religious, but Still Spending Money Religiously
Many people spend money on religious and secular products. How do spending preferences change when people stop identifying as religious? People who stop identifying as religious (religious dones) may retain preferences for religious products more so than people who have never identified as religious (religious nones). Three studies (two preregistered; total N = 2,214) supported the religious residue hypothesis: currently religious participants ex…
The Role of Religious Orientation in Worldview Conflict
Worldview conflict is a regular part of life. We typically encounter information that disagrees with or disconfirms the way we understand and make sense of the world. People usually respond negatively to such experiences; however, do responses depend, in part, on people’s individual religious beliefs or orientations? We tested whether religious orientation (i.e., intrinsic, quest, religious fundamentalism) and religious involvement moderated the …
Trait Sources of Spirituality Scale
We develop the Trait Sources of Spirituality Scale (TSSS), which assesses experiences of closeness to the sacred, within and outside a religious tradition. After using factor analysis to finalize the scale, we examine evidence of construct validity, including latent profile analysis that reveals 5 patterns of how spirituality is experienced
Negative internal causal attributions of a specific offense and forgiveness
Causal attributions are important social‐cognitive predictors of forgiveness. This article presents the Transgression Attribution Questionnaire ( TAQ ), a measure of one's negative internal causal attributions of a specific offense. In 4 studies, scores on the TAQ showed initial evidence of estimated internal consistency, temporal stability, and construct validity. Negative internal attributions for the cause of a transgression predicted lower le…
Relational Spirituality and Forgiveness of Offenses Committed by Religious Leaders
In the present article, we extend a model of relational spirituality and forgiveness to the context of major offenses by clergy. In Study 1, undergraduate students (N = 208) described a major offense that they had experienced by a religious leader and then completed several questionnaires in relation to the offense and the religious leader. Appraisals of relational spirituality were significantly associated with forgiveness, after controlling for…
Till death do us part
Two experiments extended terror management theory to investigate forgiveness in close relationships. We hypothesized that mortality salience would elicit less forgiveness in less committed relationships. In Experiment 1, participants were primed with either mortality salience or a physical pain control condition, recalled a recent hurtful interpersonal offense, and reported their degree of forgiveness. Mortality salience evoked less forgiveness i…
Relational spirituality and the development of the Similarity of the Offender’s Spirituality Scale
We present a model of relational spirituality and forgiveness that considers how a victim’s spirituality affects his or her experience of and response to a transgression. In 2 studies, we investigate the psychometric properties of the Similarity of the Offender’s Spirituality Scale (SOS), which assesses the extent to which the victim sees the offender as spiritually similar. Results suggest the SOS has 2 factors that assess the offender’s spiritu…
The Dedication to the Sacred (DS) Scale
We describe the development of the Dedication to the Sacred Scale (DS). The measure was created to test a model of relational spirituality and forgiveness. Items from a measure of commitment in couples (Stanley & Markman, 1992) were adapted to assess a victim's dedication to a relationship with the Sacred. In Study 1 (N = 171), confirmatory factor analysis revealed good fit to a single-factor model. We removed poor items and replicated the factor…
Two Sides to Self-protection
People selectively forget feedback that threatens central self-conceptions, a phenomenon labeled mnemic neglect. Such forgetting serves to protect the self-system, but its rigid application may be associated with liabilities such as failing to learn about one's weaknesses. Two experiments tested the extent to which mnemic neglect is rigid or flexible. In Experiment 1, where self-improvement strivings were primed, mnemic neglect was absent: threat…
Relational Spirituality and Forgiveness
Research on spirituality and forgiveness has begun to examine the types of dynamic, spiritual experiences that can promote forgiveness. Specifically, we explore how victims may see an offender’s humility in relationship with the Sacred, and how this appraisal affects forgiveness. We also describe the development of the Spiritual Humility Scale (SHS). In Study 1 ( N = 300; F = 166, M = 134), the SHS had a single-factor structure using exploratory …
Relational Spirituality and Dealing With Transgressions
In the study of spirituality and forgiveness, researchers have begun to look at how dynamic spiritual experiences influence forgiveness. In three studies, we develop the Relational Engagement of the Sacred for a Transgression (REST) Scale, which assesses the extent to which victims actively engage a relationship with the Sacred to deal with a specific transgression. In Study 1, exploratory factor analysis was used to determine the factor structur…
Relational Humility
The study of humility has progressed slowly due to measurement problems. We describe a model of relational humility that conceptualizes humility as a personality judgment. In this set of 5 studies, we developed the 16-item Relational Humility Scale (RHS) and offered initial evidence for the theoretical model. In Study 1 (N = 300), we developed the RHS and its subscales--Global Humility, Superiority, and Accurate View of Self. In Study 2, we confi…
Sanctification of forgiveness
Humility and the Development and Repair of Social Bonds
A theory of relational humility asserts that humility can promote strengthening social bonds. To complement prior, cross-sectional research on this topic, two longitudinal studies were conducted. In Study 1, college students in romantic relationships (N = 123), all of whom had been hurt or offended by their partners within the last two months, completed measures of humility and unforgiveness for six consecutive weeks. Relational humility predicte…
Can Religion Promote Virtue
Rather than simply studying whether religious individuals are more forgiving than nonreligious individuals, recent research has focused on how religion may promote a more fluid and efficient forgiveness process. The present studies sought to strengthen evidence for a model of relational spirituality and forgiveness (Davis, Hook, & Worthington, 2008), given the reliance of prior studies on cross-sectional designs that did not control for hurtfulne…
Victims versus perpetrators
Defensive religion as a source of meaning in life
Religion is a prominent source of meaning in life. However, the content of religious belief systems varies considerably. Previous research suggests that defensive religion serves an existential function but has yet to empirically substantiate its relation to existential outcomes. The present research extends previous work by (a) examining whether defensive religion serves as a source of meaning in life, and (b) identifying mediators of that relat…
Till death do us part
Two experiments extended terror management theory to investigate forgiveness in close relationships. We hypothesized that mortality salience would elicit less forgiveness in less committed relationships. In Experiment 1, participants were primed with either mortality salience or a physical pain control condition, recalled a recent hurtful interpersonal offense, and reported their degree of forgiveness. Mortality salience evoked less forgiveness i…
The Existential Function of Intrinsic Religiousness
Managing existential concerns is theorized to be a key function of religion. We posit that priming religion should be related to greater existential security for those high in intrinsic religiosity. In Experiment 1, priming religion increased intercultural tolerance among individuals who were highly intrinsically religious but decreased it for those low in intrinsic religiousness. In Experiment 2, intrinsic religiousness again moderated the effec…
Self-Control and Forgiveness
In the 12 years since scholars first investigated the link between self-control and forgiveness (Finkel & Campbell, 2001), the literature investigating this relation has grown rapidly. The present article reports a meta-analytic review of this link across 40 independent samples and 5,105 independent observations. In addition, it investigates an array of potential moderators. Results revealed that the overall link between self-control and forgiven…
Forgiveness of in-group offenders in Christian congregations
Religious communities, like other communities, are ripe for interpersonal offenses. We examined the degree to which group identification predicted forgiveness of an in-group offender. We examined the effects of a victim’s perception of his or her religious group identification as a state-specific personal variable on forgiveness by integrating Social Identity Theory into a model of Relational Spirituality (Davis, Hook, & Worthington, 2008) to hel…
Relational spirituality and forgiveness
In three studies, we focused on negative spiritual appraisals theorized to hinder forgiveness: being angry toward God, viewing the transgression as a desecration, or viewing the offender as evil. Because the latter construct did not have an existing measure, the first two studies describe exploratory (Study 1; N = 200) and confirmatory (Study 2; N = 300) factor analyses of the Viewing the Offender as Evil (VOE) scale. Then, in Study 3 (N = 425), …
Community Sanctification of Forgiveness
Previous research has yielded mixed findings regarding the relationship between religion/spirituality (R/S) and forgiveness. This study examined the degree to which victims view forgiveness as spiritually valuable within their R/S community. We developed the Community Sanctification of Forgiveness (CSF) scale to assess this construct. We divided the sample (N = 307) into two subsamples (n = 157; n = 150, respectively) in order to conduct explorat…
The Quiet Virtue Speaks
Empirical interest in virtues and their benefits has increased in recent years. In the present study, we test the efficacy of a workbook intervention to promote humility. Participants (N = 59) were randomly assigned to a humility condition (n = 26; 7.5-hour workbook) or a control condition (n = 33; non-action). Participants in the humility condition reported greater increases in humility across time than did participants in the control condition,…
A Meaning-Based Approach to Humility
Humans are notoriously resistant to changing their longstanding beliefs and often act defensively when they encounter individuals holding divergent beliefs. We introduce a meaning-based approach to humility (e.g., reduced defensiveness) with the claim that the desire for meaning motivates individuals to ardently defend their central beliefs. We propose that affirming meaning prior to encountering attitudinally-dissimilar individuals should reduce…
Intellectual Humility
This article focused on how perceptions of intellectual humility (IH)—humility regarding one's knowledge or influence over ideas—affect relationships with religious leaders. We developed an informant report measure of IH perceptions using exploratory (Study 1; N = 213) and confirmatory (Study 2; N = 213) factor analyses, as well as a basic manipulation of IH (Study 3; N = 139). Then in Study 4 (N = 105), we examined IH in the context of a major b…
Forgiveness Increases Meaning in Life
Close relationships are a source of meaning in life. Interpersonal offenses can disrupt one’s sense of meaning within close relationships. To restore a sense of meaning, people may employ relational repair strategies such as forgiveness. We hypothesized that forgiveness is a meaning-making mechanism because it helps repair relationships, thus restoring the positive effects of relationships on meaning. Study 1 ( N = 491) revealed that dispositiona…
Intellectual Humility and Forgiveness of Religious Conflict
Intellectual humility (IH) involves an accurate view of one's intellectual strengths and weaknesses as well as the ability to negotiate different ideas in an interpersonally respectful manner. The current study examined how IH and perceptions of IH affect responses to a religious conflict. Participants (N = 200) were undergraduate students who filled out online questionnaires about their experience of a religious conflict. Participants rated (a) …
Shifting social motives and religious expression in a globalized world
Negative internal causal attributions of a specific offense and forgiveness
Causal attributions are important social‐cognitive predictors of forgiveness. This article presents the Transgression Attribution Questionnaire ( TAQ ), a measure of one's negative internal causal attributions of a specific offense. In 4 studies, scores on the TAQ showed initial evidence of estimated internal consistency, temporal stability, and construct validity. Negative internal attributions for the cause of a transgression predicted lower le…
Toward an Understanding of Religious Tolerance
We interact frequently with individuals with religious beliefs that vary from our own. Although we may naturally prefer interacting with religiously similar others, individuals vary in their attitudes toward religiously dissimilar others. In the present set of studies, we examined how variability in quest religiousness affects religious tolerance. In Study 1 (N = 159), we found that quest religiousness in Christian undergraduates was associated w…
Psychology (96 works) · Social Psychology (89 works) · Religion, Spirituality, and Psychology (72 works) · Forgiveness and Related Behaviors (35 works) · Grief, Bereavement, and Mental Health (33 works) · Spirituality (31 works) · Philosophy (28 works) · Psychotherapist (27 works) · Forgiveness (25 works) · Epistemology (24 works)