The Predictors, Correlates, and Course of Spiritual Yearning: A Three-Site, Longitudinal Approach
G. Tyler Lefevor (Utah State University)
Sam Hardy, Justin Dyer, and Mike Goodman (Brigham Young University)
Chana Etengoff (Adelphi University)
Award: $249,601
Start Date: October 1, 2026
End Date: September 20, 2028
Focus: Because spiritual yearning is a dynamic form of longing, understanding it requires more than a one-time survey. This three-site project will use repeated measurements to ask who is most likely to experience spiritual yearning, how it changes or resolves, and how it relates over time to mental health, meaning, religious identity, and intellectual character. The design brings together six focal populations: LGBTQ+ Latter-day Saints, religious 'dones,' Christian youth, Latter-day Saint youth, Muslim emerging adults, and Orthodox Jewish emerging adults.
Approach: The three coordinated longitudinal studies span different time frames and build on existing datasets, allowing the team to compare common patterns with population-specific differences. One set of analyses will map the course and predictors of spiritual yearning. A second will test how yearning affects depression through such pathways as meaning, doubt, and spiritual struggle, and whether positive religious coping or social support reduces risk. A third will examine whether yearning precedes, follows, or mutually reinforces intellectual humility and curiosity, as well as fundamentalism and dogmatism.
Contribution: By coordinating comparable measures across diverse communities and developmental stages, the project will provide unusually strong evidence about the direction and timing of relationships that have so far been studied mainly at a single moment. The team will preregister its analyses and produce three peer-reviewed manuscripts, a conference symposium, and freely available community briefs translating the findings for religious and nonreligious audiences.
