An exploration of spiritual superiority: The paradox of self-enhancement

[Stevyn]

An exploration of spiritual superiority: The paradox of self-enhancement

Personal statement: My Colorado friends may assume I am posting this in reference to the woman I had a relationship with in Boulder Colorado... I must say that this article has nothing to do with her at all. She is a positive example of a spiritual person who studied at Naropa and remained humble, down to earth and focused on helping people.

I post this as I believe the majority of followers of the worlds mainstream religions fall into this holier then thou camp, and I do think a large number of Boulder buddhists and hippies also are deeply narcissistic and feeling superior.

Abstract

Spiritual training is assumed to reduce self-enhancement, but may have the paradoxical effect of boosting superiority feelings. It can thus operate like other self-enhancement tools and contribute to a contingent self-worth that depends on one's spiritual accomplishments. In three studies (N = 533, N = 2,223, N = 965), a brief measure of spiritual superiority showed good internal consistency and discriminant validity. As predicted, it was distinctly related to spiritual contingency of self-worth, illustrating that the self-enhancement function of spirituality is similar to other contingency domains. It was correlated with self-esteem and, more strongly, with communal narcissism, corroborating the notion of spiritual narcissism. Spiritual Superiority scores were consistently higher among energetically trained participants than mindfulness trainees and were associated with supernatural overconfidence and self-ascribed spiritual guidance. Our results illustrate that the self-enhancement motive is powerful and deeply ingrained so that it can hijack methods intended to transcend the ego and, instead, adopt them to its own service.

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs ... /ejsp.2721
https://www.psychnewsdaily.com/study-li ... periority/