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Abstract
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Self-transcendence (ST) refers to expansion beyond the boundaries of the self in diverse dimensions, including physical and social. It often also includes expanded, prosocial, spiritual, and religious worldviews, as well as psychological and behavioral qualities that are achieved through ST (Garcia-Romeu, 2010). For empirical research of ST as a trait, many questionnaires have been developed (Kitson et al., 2020). In particular, the Self-Transcendence Scale (STS) (Reed, 1991) proposed in the field of nursing and the ST subscale of the Temperament and Character Inventory (TCI-ST) (Cloninger et al., 1993) in the field of psychobiology have contributed significantly to this research (Garcia-Romeu, 2010). These questionnaires conceptualize ST as the final stage of human psychological development and adaptability, particularly in old age.
However, the characteristics considered by these two ST trait questionnaires are dominated either by adaptability or supernaturalness. This may hinder the integration of this line of empirical research into the theoretical literature on ST, in which the coexistence of adaptability and supernaturalness is taken for granted (Yaden et al., 2017; Kaufman, 2020). The STS was developed to measure adaptive psychological and behavioral traits in older adults in the terminal stages of illness. Its items mainly evaluate connectedness and are intuitively acceptable to most people as adaptive (Reed, 1991). Only 1 ("finding meaning in my spiritual beliefs") of 15 items has a slight supernatural nuance, which is inadequate for researchers who are interested in the relationship between the ST trait and spirituality or religiosity. Empirical studies that have used the STS have reported an association between scores and well-being in a variety of populations, including healthy young adults, and an increase in scores due to health-related vulnerability and age. Based on these findings, a model has been proposed in which ST moderates the negative impact of vulnerability on well-being (Reed, 2013). In contrast, the TCI-ST includes many items with supernatural, spiritual, and religious nuances, probably due to the multidimensional nature of TCI and the need for differentiation from other adaptive dimensions. Because of its uniqueness, the TCI-ST has gained significant attention and has been used in many studies. There is, however, little evidence of an association between TCI-ST scores and adaptability, such as well-being (Cloninger and Zohar, 2011; Spittlehouse et al., 2014; Moreira et al., 2015). Instead, many studies have reported an association between TCI-ST scores and psychotic traits (MacDonald and Holland, 2002; Ohi et al., 2012; Gaweda et al., 2015)...
Language: en |