What Are the Core Features and Dimensions of "Spirituality"? Applying a Partial Prototype Analysis to Understand How Laypeople Mentally Represent Spirituality as a Concept

Spirituality is a complex, multidimensional phenomenon that is at once familiar yet surprisingly ambiguous to many people, including scholars. Attempting to precisely define spirituality has proven challenging, yet one promising approach is to frame spirituality as a prototype phenomenon. The present research draws upon prototype-analysis methods to better understand the lay concepts of spirituality. Study 1 replicated key findings from Lambert, Fincham, and Graham's (2011) research that applied a prototype analysis to understand how people conceptualize prayer. Using this replication to validate the prototype-analysis approach, Study 2 applied this methodology to identify 77 key features of spirituality. Finally, in Study 3, participants reliably rated these features according to how central they are to the spirituality prototype. The feature centrality ratings were then used in an exploratory factor analysis that yielded 6 reliable dimensions of spirituality: self and values, religious beliefs, existential connection, life force, transcendence, and meaning. These 6 dimensions align well with theoretical and qualitative models of spirituality. Accordingly, this research contributes empirical evidence that spirituality may exhibit a multidimensional prototype structure and helps clarify the central features and dimensions of spirituality.