The Pervasive Orienting Power of Religiousness and Spirituality: Reflections on the Special Section

This article serves as a brief commentary as part of the Special Section on Processes of Religious and Spiritual Influence in Adolescence, published in the Journal of Research on Adolescence. The commentary summarizes each of the focal pieces in the special section, and highlights overarching themes. One particular theme is that the Special Section as a whole demonstrates the broad and pervasive presence of religiosity and spirituality at all ecological levels of life. Further, while religiosity and spirituality are broad constructs that exist at multiple ecological levels, they consistently relate to targeted outcomes via specific mediating and moderating processes. Thus, religiosity and spirituality are germane to a broad range of psychological research questions. In terms of adolescence, religiosity and spirituality can have a permeating and reorienting influence on many aspects of development and functioning, thus warranting further study.