https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1810-9448
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ABSTRACT
Do supernatural attributions to God and the devil relate to a sense of meaning in life? We investigated this question by conducting a three-week experience sampling study (N = 75), in which we measured daily causal attributions for both positive and negative events and assessed daily meaning (n = 1,425 total daily reports). Correlational and multilevel path analyses revealed several reliable between-person associations. People who made more attributions to God (particularly for positive events) had higher meaning, and people with stronger religious worldviews who made more attributions to the devil/demons (particularly for negative events) had higher meaning. These findings were largely robust when controlling for relevant meaning and religious/spiritual covariates. We did not find evidence for within-person associations; daily changes in attributions and meaning were not related. Consistent and enduring attributions to God and the devil/demons may be particularly meaningful ways of understanding the world.
Acknowledgments
This work was supported by the John Templeton Foundation Grant #59916.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Supplementary material
Supplemental data for this article can be accessed online at https://doi.org/10.1080/17439760.2023.2169630
Notes
1. Due to experimenter error, we failed to capture demographic information on our sample.