Spirituality Beyond Religion: Development of 9-Item and 27-Item Multidimensional Measures of Spiritual Yearning

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 structure of spiritual yearning and develop reliable measures. Across three studies of nonreligious adults (total N = 1,579), we conducted exploratory bifactor analysis and bifactor exploratory structural equation modeling (B-ESEM). Results revealed a strong general factor of spiritual yearning, along with nine group factors reflecting distinct yearnings: moral guidance, divine relationship, afterlife beliefs, communal belonging, transcendent interconnectedness, inner peace, spiritual experiences, authentic self-discovery, and meaningful legacy. Based on these results, we created two scales: a 9-item general yearning measure and a 27-item version incorporating a general scale and nine three-item subscales. All measures showed strong psychometric properties and initial evidence of predictive validity. Correlations indicated that general yearning was meaningfully related to existential concerns such as meaning in life, religious quest orientation, and spiritual struggles, while subscales also revealed theoretically meaningful unique associations with specific domains of spiritual struggle.